Computing in the 21st Century Conference & Asia Faculty Summit on MSRA’s 20th Anniversary
Location: Beijing, China
We live in an exciting time to witness one of the most powerful and disruptive revolutionary technological waves – the unfolding of digital transformation, empowered through the emergence of cloud and artificial intelligence. Major technological innovations and breakthroughs, such as artificial intelligence, mixed reality, and quantum computing, will have profound implications on our lives and on our society in general. In his new book Hit Refresh, Satya talks about “How people, organizations and societies can and must transform and hit refresh in their persistent quest for new energy, new ideas and continued relevance and renewal.”
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Microsoft Research Asia. As we celebrate all the great achievements and wonderful moments in our 20-year journey in our persistent pursuit of excellence, we are particularly grateful to all of our “family and friends.” We feel blessed to grow with Microsoft, with China, and with you all in this exciting era, and we are proud of what we have managed to accomplish together, with a gentle and positive touch on the people and the communities around us. While we continuously push the frontier of technological innovations, with the goal of empowering people, organizations, and our society, it is also time to reflect and refresh to renew our energy to set even higher goals and noble causes in the next 20 years and beyond.
Microsoft Research Asia’s biggest annual event, Computing in the 21st Century Conference, will be held in Beijing, China on November 6-7, 2018, in conjunction with Asia Faculty Summit 2018, featuring the theme: Refresh & Renew with Intelligence. The conference is one of the largest and most influential conferences in the field of computer science education and research in China and the Asia Pacific region. To date, 19 sessions have been held in China, Japan, Korea, and Singapore, among other countries and territories, with a combined audience of more than 40,000 people. With vigorously support of Department of International Organization of Ministry of Education and active involvement of Center of International Culture Exchange of Ministry of Education, this year’s conference will also be hosted as “2018 International AI Expert Forum of International AI Training Program for Chinese University, which features global computer science pioneers and AI industry leaders as keynote speakers and panelists. These include Professor Yoshua Bengio (Scientific Director of Mila, 2018 Turing Award Recipient), Professor Lenore Blum (Distinguished Career Professor of CMU, AMS Fellow), Professor Jason Cong (IEEE Fellow, ACM Fellow, Member of NAE), Professor John E. Hopcroft (Turing Award winner, Member of NAS and NAE, Foreign Member of CAS), Dr. Butler Lampson (Turing Award winner, Foreign Member of Royal Society, Member of NAS and NAE), Professor Raj Reddy (Turing Award winner, Member of NAE, Foreign Member of CAE), and Professor Andrew Yao (Turing Award winner, CAS Academician, Foreign Member of NAS, ACM Fellow). In addition, Dr. Harry Shum – Executive Vice President of Microsoft, Dr. Peter Lee – Corporate Vice President of Microsoft, and Dr. Hsiao-Wuen Hon – Corporate Vice President of Microsoft, Chairman of Microsoft’s Asia-Pacific R&D Group, and Managing Director of Microsoft Research Asia, will also be onsite to share their ideas.
We sincerely invite you to join us in this event to celebrate our journey together over the last 20 years, to get inspired by our thought leaders in the conference, and to hit refresh with renewed energy to embrace the next technological disruptions that make our lives and society better.
Conference Chairman
Lidong Zhou
Assistant Managing Director, Microsoft Research Asia