Faculty Summit 2019 | The future of work
Location: Redmond, Washington, USA
Friday, July 19
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Abstract: The workshop will address challenges, opportunities, and futures at the intersection of mobility and productivity, including issues around tools to support meetings and work efforts in mobile settings, the changing terrain of mobile work with advances in driving automation, and issues and opportunities around cognition in mobile settings, including addressing concerns around safety and distraction via technologies and policies that understand and support attentional needs and human cognition more generally. The goal of the workshop is to promote the sharing of ideas among researchers, to establish new collaborations, and to layout a roadmap for future research along key themes addressed at the workshop.
Event owners: Shamsi Iqbal, Ed Doran
Videos: 9:00 AM-10:40 AM | 1:00 PM-2:20 PM
Time (PDT) Session Speaker Location 8:00 AM–9:00 AM Breakfast (provided) 9:00 AM–9:20 AM Welcome and introductions Eric Horvitz, Linda Boyle Sonora 9:20 AM–10:40 AM Overview of ongoing projects (10 min each + 10 min discussion) Studies of safety, distraction and attention management in the car Eric Horvitz, Shamsi Iqbal Working in cars: overview and outlook Andrew Kun The needs of commuting knowledge workers: results from a time use study Rafaella Sadun, Orit Shaer HAMS – Harnessing Automobiles for Safety Satish Sangameswaran 10:40 AM–11:00 AM Break 11:00 AM–12:00 PM Breakout session 1: Discuss relevant topics in Future of Work All participants 12:00 PM–1:00 PM Lunch (provided) 1:00 PM–2:20 PM Specific topics of mutual interest (10 min each + 10 min discussion) Trust in and through technology John Lee Joint human-system activities Ece Kamar, Besmira Nushi Designing for in-vehicle work Shamsi Iqbal Adapting to technology in our cars Linda Boyle 2:20 PM–2:40 PM Break (coffee and snacks) 2:40 PM–3:40 PM Breakout session 2: Discuss potential research projects All participants 3:40 PM–4:00 PM Outcomes and next steps Eric Horvitz, Linda Boyle 4:00 PM–4:30 PM Shuttles to hotel
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Abstract: The Future of Work includes innovating on models that allow scaling out complex problems to include micro contributions and curated data from experts and non-experts for consensus driven and /or expert like performance.
How do we effectively combine cognitive resources of many people? We want to achieve an expert like performance to evaluate and compare models, standardize methods to validate and characterize performance. Performance can be measured by quality of resulting data, accuracy of labels and compute efficiency. One solution is having access to citizen science and crowd sourcing services in the cloud as has been proven with some projects in the past few years.
We have recently seen great results from efforts that have proven the power of citizen-science based gaming approaches, such as 1) for advancing Alzheimer’s research, or 2) in the field of neuroscience that is increasingly looking at citizen science approaches as it scales to thousands of samples for data curation and expediting the processing pipeline. Is it possible to have a generalized set of data management and cloud-based services that allow citizen science / crowd sourced approaches to achieve faster and higher quality results than traditional benchmarks? What else is missing from crowdsourcing frameworks to make them useful? This workshop will discuss research efforts in crowd, cloud and the future of work—the positive outcomes observed so far, future directions and aspirations.
Event owners: Besmira Nushi, Vani Mandava
Videos: 9:00 AM-10:00 AM | 10:15 AM-11:00 AM
Time (PDT) Session Speaker Location 9:00 AM–9:15 AM Workshop kickoff [Video] Besmira Nushi, Vani Mandava Baker 9:15 AM–9:30 AM How to Enable AI Development with Human Intelligence Ece Kamar 9:30 AM–9:45 AM Human AI Complementarity Kori Inkpen 9:45 AM–10:00 AM Efficiently Answering Visual Questions Asked by People Who Are Blind with Human-AI Partnerships and AI Algorithms Danna Gurari 10:00 AM–10:15 AM Break 10:15 AM–10:30 AM The Thinking Economy and the Future of Labor Pietro Michelucci 10:30 AM–10:45 AM Help Me to Help You: Optimizing the Human-Machine Partnership with Zooniverse Lucy Fortson 10:45 AM–11:00 AM brainlife.io accelerating neuroscience discovery via cloud computing and smart infrastructure Franco Pestilli 11:00 AM–12:15 PM Break out session: Crowdsourcing and the Future of Work 12:15 PM–1:00 PM Lunch and networking
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Abstract: Almost all companies desire to be more productive, and the concept is frequently invoked when there is a need to demonstrate growth, effectiveness and impact. However, what productivity means and whether it is an appropriate metric for the success of companies, and individuals, is rarely scrutinised and varies considerably across industries. For example, in industrial manufacturing, success could be producing more for less, whereas in creative industries, success could be increased consumption engagement.
The aim of this workshop is to consider how useful productivity is as a concept for thinking about what it means to succeed in work and in business, and what its relevance will be as we anticipate the future of work to comprise changes in where, how and by whom work gets done.
In the workshop we will explore the following questions:
- What does it mean to ‘be productive’, how does this differ across industries, and at what scales can productivity be customised as a metric or in terms of activities?
- What are the challenges of using productivity as a metric, and does the changing nature of work require a new set of metrics? If so, what might these be?
- To what extent and in what contexts can productivity be imposed, trained, or suggested?
During the lunch break, there will also be a display of work produced by design students on the theme of “Empowering people with AI.”
Organizing committee:
Abigail Sellen, Brendan Murphy, Sean Rintel, Jacek Czerwonka (Microsoft Developer Services), Kim Herzig (Microsoft Developer Services), Peggy Storey (University Victoria)
Video: 9:00 AM-10:30 AM
Time (PDT) Session Speaker Location 8:00 AM–9:00 AM Breakfast (provided) 9:00 AM–9:15 AM Welcome and Introduction Rainier 9:15 AM–10:30 AM What does productivity mean? Quantifying the workplace to boost productivity: how much is humanly possible? Yvonne Rogers, UCL; Steve Whittaker, UCSC 10:30 AM–10:45 AM Break 10:45 AM–12:15 PM Microsoft’s perspective on productivity Stress in the workplace Pete Card Measuring Developer Satisfaction and Engineering System Health in Office David Speirs, Gurkaran Singh 12:15 PM–1:00 PM Lunch 1:00 PM–2:30 PM Using metrics to improve productivity within Microsoft Using Windows Telemetry to Understand Developer Productivity Brian Houck The Art of Measuring Productivity Kim Herzig 2:30 PM–3:00 PM Open discussion on productivity
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Abstract: Tasks (defined pieces of work), ranging in scope from specific (like sending an email) to broad (like planning a wedding) are central to all aspects of information access and use. Task intelligence spans technologies and experiences to extract, understand, and support the completion of short- and long-term tasks. Helping people complete tasks is a key capability of search systems, digital assistants, and productivity applications. Extracting tasks from data is a core challenge in data mining and knowledge representation and draws on additional research from areas such as ubiquitous computing, machine learning, and natural language processing. Attributes of tasks, such as priority, duration, and progress toward completion, can also be inferred from data and have value in productivity applications and beyond. The Task Intelligence workshop at the MSR Faculty Summit 2019 will cover many of these topics and comprise both presentations and interactive discussions.
Event owners: Ryen White, Ahmed Hassan Awadallah
Time (PDT) Session Speaker Location 9:00 AM–9:15 AM Welcome and introductions St Helens 9:15 AM–9:45 AM Tasks at Microsoft Caitlin Hart, Microsoft To-Do Monika Dragulski, Microsoft Project/Planner
Kalyan Ayloo, Microsoft Assistance and Intelligence
9:45 AM–10:30 AM Research talks (20 mins per talk x2) Mark Smucker, University of Waterloo Rob Capra – University of North Carolina
10:30 AM–10:45 AM Break 10:45 AM–11:30 AM Research talks (20 mins per talk x2) Flora Salim – RMIT Jeff Huang, Brown University
11:30 AM–12:15 PM Panel with discussion Peter Brusilvosky, University of Pittsburgh Max Wilson, University of Nottingham
Flora Salim, RMIT
Elnaz Nouri, Microsoft Research AI
12:15 PM–1:00 PM Lunch
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Abstract: The digital revolution has been characterized as the Fourth Revolution. The Fifth can be said to be AI. Quantum is poised to ignite the Sixth—and so the Future of Work inevitably implicates the development of a Quantum-ready workforce which, in turn, starts with equipping the students of today with the right curriculum, exposure, and experiences.
In just hours or days, a quantum computer can solve complex problems that would otherwise take billions of years for today’s computers to solve. This has massive implications for research and workforce development for healthcare, energy, environmental systems, smart materials, and more. From hardware to software, from development through deployment, Microsoft is focused on bringing the only scalable quantum system to the broadest set of customers and partnering with universities to ensure that we have the people ready to staff the quantum economy and ecosystem of tomorrow.
This Workshop which includes a hands-on opportunity for attendees to benefit from a short tutorial leveraging Microsoft’s latest and emerging quantum tools will provide:
- An overview of quantum computing. A brief landscape discussion that includes an overview of Microsoft’s unique approach to Quantum Computing, including our “full stack” approach.
- Insight into real-world quantum applications. We will share results of a partnership with a leading computational chemistry group that yielded open-source, high-performance computational chemistry tools. These tools will help scientists to better solve computationally complex chemistry problems.
- Open source resources: Q# and the Microsoft Quantum Development Kit. Learn about the fastest path to quantum development—the Microsoft Quantum Development Kit and the Q# quantum programming language—featuring high-level language constructs, advanced code simulation, debugging, and documentation, and Microsoft’s portfolio of libraries and samples. Tutorial will also include details on the Microsoft Quantum Katas, exercises designed to teach quantum programming and quantum concepts.
- An overview and access to hands-on, software-driven curriculum and, specifically, what makes it pressing and possible to advance the programming and applications layer now from a curriculum development perspective. Highlights of other recent curriculums and the use of notebook environments in the classroom will be featured.
- Case study: quantum computing curriculum developed with the University of Washington. Recently, our Quantum Software experts partnered with UW to bring a 10-week Introduction to Quantum Computing and Quantum Programming in Q# to the school of Computer Science. Learn how students can get started with hands-on quantum programming quickly by completing a rich collection of quantum programming exercises in Q# (‘coding katas’).
The workshop provides an opportunity for open discussion regarding current research and educational needs around quantum computing and opportunities for universities.
Event owners: Krysta Svore, Linda Lauw, Martin Roetteler, Mark Tsang
Videos: 9:00 AM-9:45 AM | 9:45 AM-10:30 AM | 10:45 AM-11:30 AM | 11:30 AM-12:15 PM | 1:15 PM-2:00 PM
Time (PDT) Session Speaker Location 9:00 AM–9:45 AM An overview of quantum computing Jeongwan Haah Lassen 9:45 AM–10:30 AM Insight into real-world quantum applications Brad Lackey 10:30 AM–10:45 AM Break 10:45 AM–11:30 AM Open source resources – Q# and the Microsoft Quantum Development Kit Bettina Heim 11:30 AM–12:15 PM An overview and access to hands-on, software-driven curriculum Mariia Mykhailova 12:15 PM–1:15 PM Networking lunch 1:15 PM–2:00 PM Case study: quantum computing curriculum developed with the University of Washington Martin Roetteler