Augustine, Bezos, Gore, and Pausch Speak at CMU Commencement
Whew! We’ve finished the school year, culminating in our commencement weekend. I’ve always enjoyed the celebrations, even if it is all a bit tiring. This year, commencement was exceptionally action-packed.
The commencement activities started (for me) with a meeting with six of our new graduates from the Qatar campus. Wow, what a great group! Bright, energetic, ambitious, and obviously proud of their accomplishments. All are noteworthy for blazing the trail in our still-new operation in Qatar, though it is perhaps worth singling out Noura El-Moughny, who worked with Bernadine Dias on a senior thesis entitled, “Assistive Computing Technology for Learning to Write Braille“. There were, in fact, several nice student research projects in Qatar, and so I would look forward to Qatar students some day making their way into our 5th-year program and even Ph.D. programs.
On Saturday morning I was in a roundtable meeting with Jeff Bezos, the Amazon.com CEO. Jeff was in town to receive an honorary doctorate, and spent the entire weekend visiting people in both the School of Computer Science and the Tepper School of Business. This was a small affair, with just 6 faculty members. R. Ravi and I were the moderators. Jeff was one of the most fun, engaging, and technical executives I’ve ever met. We discussed many topics, with some of the most interesting having to do with both the technology and the business of the Kindle e-reading device, something that I’ve been enjoying lately. Plans to open up the device and provide an SDK were particularly provocative for me. One thing to wonder about is whether a Kindle-like device might someday be a combined textbook / social-networking device for college students.
At the end of the meeting, I made a small deal with Jeff: I would read my commencement speech notes on my Kindle, in exchange for an autograph. ;-)
(By the way, the Kindle worked great as a mini-teleprompter.) On Saturday evening, I attended the hooding ceremony for the new PhD’s. Norm Augustine, also in town for an honorary doctorate, gave a great keynote, on the now-familiar theme of US competitiveness in science and engineering. He also talked about the many spectacular failures he has encountered — and overcome — throughout his career. These stories, from a person who is among the most successful engineers ever (special consultant to the President; assistant secretary of the Army; chairman of Lockheed Martin; …), were especially inspirational for everyone.
Sunday morning started with brunch and then the main university commencement ceremony. Headlining the program, of course, was the keynote speaker. Al Gore, who described himself as “the former future President”. As we have come to expect, Gore was simultaneously funny and serious, focusing his most important remarks on the problem of global climate change. I don’t think there could have been a more inspirational send-off for our new graduates. As if that weren’t enough, Randy Pausch made a surprise appearance, telling the graduates to stay true to themselves, even in the face of adversity. The graduates applauded wildly.
In the afternoon we held the commencement ceremony for the School of Computer Science. Jeff Bezos, a computer science graduate himself, gave a fantastic keynote in which he revealed the fact that he is an avid Trekkie. (He admitted that, as a kid playing Star Trek with his friends, he always took the role of Computer.) He really charmed everyone and impressed people with his bellowing laugh. Randy Pausch also made yet another surprise appearance, and this time he was given an award from a symposium in Germany that he was unable to attend in person. Randy’s remarks to the SCS graduates were summed up by saying, “Instead of being a computer scientist who happens to be human, be a human who happens to be a computer scientist.” As in the main commencement ceremony, Randy was given a long, standing ovation.
Just think about it. Norm Augustine, Al Gore, Jeff Bezos, and Randy Pausch. Wow, that is an incredible commencement lineup. Congratulations to all of our 2008 graduates! They certainly have earned this and a whole lot more.
Peter Lee @ May 20, 2008