That is the tag line for a new application named “Crowded,” developed by the Lexington-based mobile application studio Stadionaut. The app challenges fans watching live Major League Baseball games—whether actually attending or watching on television—to predict what will happen next. Users compete against other fans to earn various rewards and prizes. The social aspect of the application combined with real-time action and updates could turn the casual baseball fan into a loyal supporter of the Major League Baseball brand—at least, that is what Stadionaut, which is comprised of several graduates from the University of Kentucky College of Engineering, believes is possible with their first app.

From left to right: Scott Wagner, Evan Leach, Chris Allen, and
Jim Wombles

Stadionaut is led in part by Scott Wagner, who graduated with a B.S. in computer science in May 2012 and Evan Leach, who earned a B.S. in animal science from the College of Agriculture in December 2011. Other graduates from the College of Engineering include Chris Allen (BSCS, 2010) and Wes Walker, who will graduate with a B.S. in computer science on December 14.

Stadionaut was launched in August 2011 after participating in Lexington-based Awesome Inc.’s startup incubator program during the summer. The basis for “Crowded” originated over the three-month program, during which they were mentored through the process of developing the idea and the business model.

“The University of Kentucky introduced us to the startup accelerator program, Awesome Inc., and continues to support us through resources such as the Von Allmen Center, iNet and its ties through Commerce Lexington,” said Stadionaut co-founder Scott Wagner.

With an eye toward making “Crowded” available for Android and iOS for the 2013 MLB season, Stadionaut representatives recently pitched their product to decision-makers at this year’s MLB Trade Show.

“The MLB Trade Show was a great opportunity for ‘Crowded’ as we were among the top baseball executives in the industry,” emphasized Wagner. “We were proud to represent the University of Kentucky and the emerging startup community in Lexington by presenting ‘Crowded’ to a national audience.”

Stadionaut won the grand prize at the inaugural iNet Venture Challenge, a business competition for University of Kentucky student entrepreneurs last March.

Computer science is a dynamic field where, as Ken Calvert, Ph.D. and chair of the Department of Computer Science, states, “The only way to stay on the leading edge is to invent everything.” Consider that 10 years ago, Facebook, Twitter and iPhones didn’t exist and iPods and digital internet were just coming into play. Ten years from now, what will serve as our technological staples—and have the ideas for those creations even been conceived? Thinking about the future of computer science necessitates a short-term perspective because the industry sheds its skin with increasing frequency. Nonetheless, questions about the opportunities and perils abound: Are innocent, everyday folks who simply want to catch up with high school friends or purchase a cookbook at the mercy of malevolent, identity-thieving hackers? How will sea changes in the industry, such as the advent of cloud computing, affect traditional computer science jobs? And how can anyone hope to keep up with waves of technology hailed as cutting-edge one year and disregarded as antiquated the next? To sort through these questions, we sat down with Calvert and Jim Griffioen, Ph.D., professor of computer science and director of the Laboratory for Advanced Networking.

Q: What are shaping up to be the greatest areas of opportunity in the computer science field over the next few years?

K.C. I think this is an exciting time in computer science. Hardware has become so cheap that both compute cycles and storage bytes have essentially become commoditized. We’re seeing this right now with the cloud computing model. A company can now pay someone a relatively low monthly fee to run their web server instead of shelling out thousands of dollars for hardware, software and maintenance. It’s basically the same transition that happened with electric power 100 years ago. Nicholas Carr’s book, The Big Switch, describes how, back then, factories had to be located next to big streams because that’s where they got the power to run their machines. When electric power grids came along, generation of power became centralized. The same exact centralization is happening with the advent of cloud computing. It makes a lot more sense to have one big centralized data center run by people who know what they’re doing than for every little company to run its own.

J.G. Historically, computer scientists have created technology without fully knowing how it’s going to play out. The internet was built so machines could communicate back and forth and share information. Well, then users came along and said, “I need this to be easy to use. I need a web interface. I need a browser.” None of those uses were part of the original design. Now we have virtualization through cloud computing as well as ubiquitous networking—you can be on the network at all times. In addition, we also have a very mobile society. Devices which can maximize the benefits of the cloud will need to be developed. I think we’re on the edge of some of these things just exploding and once it explodes, we’ll have a whole new set of issues to address—how to secure such a world, etc.

K.C. What virtualization also means is that software is going to be king. Everything is going to be about software because hardware is so cheap. I think the opportunities in software are tremendous. However, as Jim mentioned, we now have to consider questions such as: how do I keep control of my information? How do I know what information people are collecting about me? Businesses already know a lot about us and they are going to try to monetize that any way they can. Why do Facebook and Twitter have such astronomical valuations?  I believe it’s because they know who is talking to whom and what they’re saying. Privacy is a huge issue going forward and it’s not just “old people” who are concerned about it. We need to understand how to maximize the benefits of virtualization without the Big Brother risks.

Q: What does the future look like on the security front?

J.G. When everyday users weigh the prospective gain of a new application against the possible security risks, they almost always accept the tradeoff. It is difficult to keep up with potential threats and understand the risks because the landscape changes so quickly. On the positive side, though, industry has finally recognized that security is not an afterthought. In the past, companies created products and tacked security onto the back end of the development process. Often, that made it hard to add the security because it wasn’t present from the start. Now, computer scientists are asking, “How do I design the architecture so that if it doesn’t have security now, it is amenable to it later?” There are discussions going on right now about the next generation of the Internet. Naturally, security is a central topic.

K.C. As long as we have the Internet architecture we have, we’re not going to solve many of the current problems. The architecture doesn’t have the things we need to solve them, and there’s just too much inertia to counteract. So it’s hard to say what the future is going to look like there. But again, almost as important as security is privacy. When it comes to the leaders in software and social media, people aren’t given a choice to use the product and still maintain their privacy. Those companies say, “Here are our policies, take them or leave them.” And people agree, even though the policies are not in their favor, because they want to use the product. I printed out the iTunes license agreement once. It was 29 pages of 9 point font. No one is going to read that! That’s why I think we really need more collaboration between experts in computer science and experts in psychology. As systems get more and more complex and everyday people have to make decisions about privacy settings on their computer or home router, we need to design systems and educate users so the consequences of each decision they have to make is much clearer. That is certainly not the case right now. Unfortunately, until software providers accept accountability for their products—until they have incentive to change—the situation will remain challenging.

Q. What areas in the field besides security and privacy need attention?

K.C. We need to focus on parallelism. You often hear that Moore’s Law is running out of gas. On the contrary, Moore’s Law is still going strong; but the dividends of Moore’s Law are now being paid in parallelism, not in faster sequential computation. Rather than doing each step of the computation faster, you can do multiple steps at once in the same amount of time.

J.G. As far as teaching parallelism in the classroom, we have to change our approach. We’ve been teaching the students a step-by-step process; basically, that’s how computer scientists have always conceived writing programs. Well, now we have multiple processors running on chips and we have to start thinking, “How do I write a program that does three things at once? Eight things at once?” What happens when the chips allow us to do hundreds of things at once? We need to start changing the mindset of everyone in our program and challenge them to think, “I’m going to do lots of things at once.”

K.C. If you’re only doing one thing at a time, you cannot take advantage of the additional power that Moore’s Law is giving you. So, like Jim said, we have to be able to figure out how to do multiple things at once, like putting meat on the stove to brown and, while that’s happening, mixing other ingredients. That’s the way we need to think about things all the time. It’s not trivial. We want to turn out graduates who can master doing things in parallel because this is the way it’s going to be from now on. Right now, though, the tools we have for taking advantage of Moore’s Law and parallelism aren’t very good, so it’s definitely an area that needs attention.

Q. How much of a challenge is it to stay on the leading edge of an industry where technology changes so rapidly, let alone translate those changes into your curricula?

K.C. It’s almost impossible. We could spend all of our time just trying to keep up. It’s a catch-22: we have to show our students technology and let them get their hands dirty, but the reality is whatever we show them as freshmen will have changed and might even be obsolete by the time they are seniors. Five years ago, everybody was using Perl and CGI scripts on the web. Now those tools have been replaced by a new generation of languages and platforms. So, our task is to teach fundamental principles and I think we do a good job of that. Fortunately, students quickly adapt to the rate of change. They’re fearless and not afraid to pick up new technology and play with it. I consider that a good thing and we need to try to leverage it in the classroom.

J.G. At the same time, we faculty have to make the purpose of learning fundamental concepts and principles clear to them. They have to know that chances are whatever programming language we teach them their freshman year will probably be out of date by the time they graduate. The turnaround times really are that short.

K.C. That actually seems to make it easier to motivate our students to learn the fundamentals, though, because incoming students have seen the short life cycles of various technologies several times already.  It’s pretty obvious to them now that if they don’t focus on the stuff that doesn’t change, they’re not going to be able to adapt when they’re forced to.

J.G. Even though I’m a longstanding faculty member, I often learn from the students. There is so much software out there, so many programs, so many computing languages, that I can’t play with them all. Students will come to me and tell me about a program and I’ll say, “Explain it to me. How does it work? What does it do?” I learn a lot from interacting with them.

K.C. The only way to stay on the leading edge is to invent everything. We have a weekly “Keeping Current” seminar, where students share what they’ve learned or some new technology they’ve discovered. They’re always coming in and telling us about stuff we’ve never heard of. It’s a volunteer thing, very informal, but a lot of fun. There are so many tools around, it’s just unbelievable.

Q. How does the future of computer science look from the perspective of college students choosing it as a career?

K.C. It couldn’t be better. In the early 2000s, people were afraid all the computer science jobs were going to be outsourced overseas. That hasn’t happened. In fact, the Bureau of Labor projects software engineering jobs will grow by 38% over the next ten years—one of the top professions as far as growth. Our students are in demand and will continue to be in demand for a long time. I am constantly being contacted by people wanting to hire our graduates. It’s clear there are more jobs than people to do them, and I don’t see that changing.

J.G. I was contacted by a mid-sized company the other day that decided they were going to get into the mobile world, but didn’t have a clue as to how to go about it and wanted to know if any of our students or graduates could help them figure it out. Companies need people who know how to take advantage of the technology, not just throw around terms. One aspect that will change in light of the switch to cloud computing, however, will be the kinds of jobs available. There won’t be as much need for systems administrator jobs if everything is run through a centralized data center. So what a graduate might do once they’re in the marketplace might change, but the demand is still very high.

K.C. Our goal is to equip students to be able to adapt to change. We teach them how to think and how to learn because that’s the only way they’re going to survive. If they think they’re going to learn C++, graduate and be a C++ programmer all their lives, it’s just not going to happen.

Q. What are some myths and misconceptions about the computer science industry?

J.G. One myth I often hear is that all the exciting stuff is happening in industry. “Companies are where the exciting things are happening,” someone will say, downplaying the need for education in the field. While it’s now true that bright high school kids can get programming jobs with big companies right away, we still believe in the importance of developing a skill set based on the fundamentals that will last a long time.

K.C. I think another myth is that computer science is all about programming. Computing professionals need to have an understanding of programming, but it’s even more important to have a broad understanding of the business you’re in: social networking, data mining, business concepts, etc. The future is about applications and applying computing to problems in biology, medicine, engineering, the environment, business, entertainment and other industries—it’s a great time to be a software entrepeneur! Another myth is that computer science is something only guys would want to do. The stereotypical image of scruffy-haired guys with beards staring at computer screens needs to be replaced by one which illustrates the openness of the field to anyone who wants to get in on the opportunities available.

“I am grateful to our faculty volunteers and student organizations like Kappa Delta Sorority and Society of Women Engineers (SWE) who work hard to make sure GEMS is a rewarding experience for the girls,” said Vicki Cooper, who coordinated the event. “They generously sacrifice their time to teach and inspire girls who could become future engineers.”

The girls began the day listening to former UK president Lee Todd share his story about developing a childhood interest in engineering as the result of a similar outreach program.  To emphasize his point, Todd displayed the project he created when he was a boy as he recounted his career.

Following the keynote address, the attendees participated in three interactive sessions led by College of Engineering faculty and graduate students. Challenged by event coordinators to present STEM education in ways that compel students to want to know more, faculty members Bruce Walcott, Debby Keen, Kimberly Ward Anderson, Nancy Miller, Chuck May, Christine Trinkle and Czarena Crofcheck engaged students through hands-on demonstrations, games and experiments. Walcott, who is involved with several such outreach programs, is encouraged by how programs like GEMS benefit Kentucky.

“It is critical to the economic future success of the Commonwealth of Kentucky that the UK College of Engineering continues to conduct outreach programs such as our Girls Enjoying Math and Science (GEMS) Day. This program promotes engineering and math and science to young women at a time when our State and Nation needs more women entering the engineering workforce. Our partnership with the Girls Scouts and Susan Miller makes an ideal platform to promote the importance of the STEM education disciplines to young women.”

Over 150 teams competed at several satellite sites. The Lexington site was organized by UK’s Department of Computer Science, which has hosted the event since 2000, and enlisted the help of many student volunteers and staff members. Twenty-seven teams competed for five hours in the WT Young Library labs, attempting to solve numerous algorithmic problems in an extremely short amount of time.

“The contest was a great success for all the participating teams,” said faculty advisor and satellite site director Jerzy Jaromczyk. “The participants moved their programming skills to the next level and took home new experiences.”

While the competition itself was demanding, creative programming-themed team names offered levity to the experience. “How I Met Your Motherboard” from Austin Peay University was among the most popular entries.

Four teams representing UK competed in the event, finishing in the top seven locally and in the Mid-Central region’s top 10; however, they fell short of advancing to the ACM World Finals in St. Petersburg, Russia. Jaromczyk, who oversaw the UK teams that advanced to the World Finals—most recently in 2010—is optimistic about UK’s future in this event.

“Overall, our teams did very well. We plan to continue practicing for next year and hope to make it back to the World Finals of this most prestigious programming contest.”

“I was actually determined to get away and see more of the country,” he laughs. “I didn’t even take a tour of the campus.”

Yet there were compelling reasons for Josiah to consider enrolling at UK. First, because of his academic record, he qualified to receive a scholarship that would fully fund his education. For many students, such a financial incentive would all but seal the deal, but Josiah continued to apply due diligence to his university search.

“Money isn’t everything. I figured that I could always make money and pay off debt if another school’s offer made it necessary to take out student loans. But with my whole life ahead of me, I wanted to make sure UK could offer the specific opportunities I was looking for outside of the education itself,” he explains.

What kinds of opportunities and intangibles did Josiah look for when scrutinizing the UK College of Engineering and its Department of Computer Science?

“There were several areas,” Josiah recalls. “First, I wanted to know that UK’s undergraduates were able to get involved in research and extend their learning beyond the classroom through independent work. Second, I wanted to know about UK’s study abroad options and the resources available for such trips. I also had questions about the kinds of jobs UK’s computer science graduates get as well as where they go for graduate school.”

Josiah met with department chair Kenneth Calvert to address each issue. In the end, Josiah saw enough potential to pursue his undergraduate education at UK. Now a junior, how does Josiah evaluate his experience thus far?

“UK has exceeded my expectations by far,” he says. “I got everything I was looking for as well as opportunities I had never even considered. It was the right decision to come here.”

Concerning research, Josiah has had the chance to work with computer science professor Judy Goldsmith on her artificial intelligence research, particularly in the area of planning and decision making under conditions of uncertainty. His research productivity enabled him to pursue another piece of important criteria from his university search: studying abroad.

“This past summer I went to Paris to continue my research with some of the leading researchers in the artificial intelligence field. It was my first time out of the country and one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. Being able to do research, without worrying about classes, in Paris was unbelievable,” he says.

In recognition of Josiah’s academic excellence and passion for research, the Department of Computer Science made him the inaugural recipient of the Duncan E. Clarke Memorial Innovation Award. The award was established as a tribute to former computer science professor Duncan Clarke’s educational and career achievements, his passion for research and his lifelong pursuit of innovation and excellence.

“I am very honored to receive this award because I know the quality of the students in the computer science department and all are equally as deserving,” he says. “It means a lot for a faculty member to think highly enough of you to nominate you for such an award.”

When he graduates, Josiah plans to attend graduate school and earn a Ph.D. He is also thinking about entrepreneurial ventures that will require problem solving on a computer science and business level. For now, however, he is enjoying classes, research and involvement in Triangle Fraternity, which is open to engineers, architects and scientists, and the Society for the Promotion of Undergraduate Research (SPUR).

“A lot of incoming freshman I talk to aren’t interested in research, but what a student learns by working independently and with a team can really them understand whether or not they are in the right field,” he suggests. “So I am doing what I can to help the number of undergraduates doing research grow.”

Of the seven students who took part in VisU, five worked on an ambitious project called “InfoForest.” The goal of InfoForest is to give ancient manuscripts new life by allowing anyone to analyze digitally replicated versions. At the forefront of InfoForest is the “Chad Gospels,” a volume of ancient biblical texts copied from the Latin Vulgate and dating to the eighth century. The lone surviving volume of the Chad Gospels is housed in Lichfield Cathedral, Staffordshire, England; however, using scanned images of the documents, VisU researchers specializing in classical literature, data visualization, programming languages, browsers and mobile devices have succeeded in paving the way for future users to perform visually interesting, detailed research on the Gospels, regardless of what device they use.

“The goal was to make InfoForest easily replicable and dynamic,” said Becky Hogan of Taylor University. “Like the name, InfoForest, we anticipate frequently adding to the ways in which we can visually present the manuscripts.”

In addition to Hogan, UK students Bonnie Lewis and John Broadbent contributed to InfoForest, along with Puerto Rican students Krystel Marquez and Eric Santos.

“I have never worked with a better or more talented group of people,” said Broadbent at the close of his presentation.

Prior to the group’s report, VisU’s other two students from Puerto Rico described their research efforts and accomplishments. Jean-Karlo Accetta gave a demonstration on the future possibilities of computer interfaces using a Microsoft Kinect to move through his slides. Following Accetta, Karlo Luis Martinez Martos took those in attendance through his research into warping images onto non-flat surfaces.

Computer science professor, Brent Seales, is the faculty mentor for the VisU program. The program was created in 2010 following nearly 10 years of partnering with the University of Puerto Rico to provide research experiences for undergraduate students in the computer science program.

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From left, Dr. Kim Anderson, Joshua Guerin, Dr. Sue Nokes

Computer Science Ph.D. student and teaching assistant Joshua Guerin received the Provost’s Award for Outstanding Teaching in the teaching assistant category during the Founders Day Ceremony held February 22. For those who know and have spent time with Guerin, the award comes as no surprise: Joshua Guerin simply loves to teach.

Guerin’s teaching resume reflects a true love for the craft, not simply seizing opportunities to get ahead. He regular seeks extra responsibility, whether teaching additional classes or developing curricula and assignments for his classes. He has supervised undergraduate teaching assistants as well as undergraduate research assistants. Beyond the university walls, Guerin volunteers and contributes teaching-related service by judging science fairs, getting kids interested in STEM education and coaching a local robotics team at one of the local elementary schools. “I take every opportunity I get to teach. One of the most gratifying things to me is when students get excited about what excites me,” Guerin says.

Specifically, it is computing that excites Guerin. Conveying excitement about computing to students who might not be interested is a challenge familiar to Guerin. “I teach Introduction to Programming, which is required of all engineering majors,” he says. “Many of the students come in with no interest in computer programming and that gives me ample opportunity to convince them of its relevance to their future careers in engineering.”

One of the three letters of recommendation written on Guerin’s behalf in consideration for the Provost’s Award was a former student of his who wrote that he declared a major in computer science after taking Guerin’s class. “When a student tells me that they are continuing to pursue computer science either inside or outside of the classroom I feel like I have accomplished something important,” he says.

Guerin’s primary area of research is artificial intelligence techniques for modeling personal preferences. His goal is to apply these techniques to academic advising. “My hope is to develop software that helps academic advisors and students” he explains. “Ideally, they will come into the advising process better prepared to make informed decisions.”

After graduation, Guerin plans to take a faculty position at a university where he can primarily focus on teaching. With fewer research demands, he hopes to maintain the availability and relational strengths he believes make him an effective teacher. “I consider myself a teacher who does research,” he says. “I enjoy the research I do, but teaching is where my heart is.”

“Our research group is investigating the application of AI techniques to decision-support tools for academic advising” said Guerin.  “We surveyed STEM and non-STEM majors about an experimental text-based explanation system, and collected data related to perception of the advising process.  In this study we’ve compiled answers to questions related to perceived utility of the advising process and the kinds of information that students wish to obtain from academic advisors.  In this poster we compare and contrast answers given by STEM majors and non-STEM majors, and analyze how student GPA and number of semesters attended influence their answers.”

The IEEE is the world’s leading professional association for advancing technology for humanity. Through its 385,000 members in 160 countries, the association is a leading authority on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems, computer and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics.

Dr. Calvert holds degrees from M.I.T., Stanford and the University of Texas. He joined the Computer Science Department’s faculty in 1998, becoming its chair in 2007.