Today was the all day VICS Conference. It’s when the IEEE gives out its highest medals and awards. I The day was full of talks, panels, and presentations. I got to see some old friends and got to meet and hang out with several of my technical heroes .  I was there to present one of the two awards that IBM had sponsored. The award I presented on IBM’s behalf was  the John Von Neumann award  “for outstanding achievements in computer-related science and technology” . The recipient was  Dr. Tom Leighton, the co-founder of the content distribution company Akemi. It was a real pleasure getting to meet and get to know Tom.    The other IBM Sponsored award was the the new Fran Allen Award for “innovative work in computing that led to a lasting impact on the field of engineering, technology, or science. ” My IBM  colleague and friend  Andy helped present the  award to Prof Lydia Kavraki from Rice University for her work on probabilistic programming for robotic motion planning. I was particularly happy to meet this awardee as Fran Allen was a friend of mine. She was the first Woman to become and IBM Fellow and the first woman to win the Turing Award ( sometime called the  ‘noble prize of computer science”) .   My favorite speech was by Dr Vint Cerf, the co-founder of TCPIP, the underpinning of the Internet. Vint was interviewed early in the day and gave a great account of his career and life. I was very taken by his story meeting his wife, who became deaf at age 3… and her path of getting a cochlear implant first  at age 53 , then again at age 63.  .. That allowed her to enjoy music and  talk on the phone  for the first  time. He said when she got hte first implant it was like having a teenager in the house.. she wouldn’t get off the phone :-). What was so cool is that the husband and wife team of Dr’s Ingeborg  & Erwin Hochmair won the Alexander Graham Bell. award that same day for their contributions to the invention of the cochlear implant !

I got to speak with Rodney Brooks the winner of the IEEE Founders meadla , an MIT prof I’ve always admired and the co founder of iRobot, Rethink robotics and several other companies. He showed me a pictureds of his hand build Relay logic computing engine. ALl hand made.. sooooo wonderfully geeky. What a guy.  I alos  got to meet Prof Hiroyuki Matsunami, winner of the Edison Medal who helped invent the Silicon Carbide transistors we use in the inverters that make our planes fly at BETA.   It was also a pleasure seeing  my old friends Prof Jose Moura , winner of the Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal  and his wife Prof Manueala Veloso.,

I was also deeply touched by the story  of one of the award recipients Ross Stone. the winner of the IEEE Richard M. Emberson Award. Stone died. just one month before the ceremony and hs wife Susan was there to receive the award. She carried a picture of her late husband up to the stage as she received the award on his behalf.   I spoke with her about it.. she was happy, sad, proud and brave. 

I also got to spend time  with a bunch of younger IEEE members from several IEEE student chapters. It was great talkign with them. THey helped me brainstorm obout the ‘OnBoard’ program I’m working on  to get high school and college kids to fall in love with making printed circuit boards ..

I was very grateful for the opportunity to attend. this event !

Nite all;. nite sam

-me