iFest 2016

PITTSBURGH—The University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences—the iSchool at Pitt—will showcase its students’ research and offer insight into all that the information fields contribute to our ever-evolving technological world during iFest 2016.

Held annually since 2005, iFest is Pitt’s banner event for connecting School of Information Sciences students with major organizations across the nation. A weeklong series of competitions, exhibitions, networking opportunities, a career fair, and an information technology conference, iFest 2016 takes place Feb. 1-5 within Pitt’s Information Sciences Building, 135 North Bellefield Ave., Oakland. While some events are exclusively for Pitt-student participation, all other events in the series are free and open to the public.

“Every year, through iFest, the School of Information Sciences opens its doors to the public to share how our best and brightest have been addressing the challenges and opportunities of the information age,” said Wes Lipschultz, director of student services at the School of Information Sciences. “One only has to look at the news on any given day to see that information is being generated faster than humanity can adequately store, secure, or use it all. The iSchool at Pitt has a rich history, of over 100 years, of helping to empower humanity with the information it has at its disposal.”

A full schedule of iFest 2016 activities can be found here. Details of notable planned activities and events follows:

The Career and Internship Expo provides Pitt’s computer science, information sciences, and Swanson School of Engineering students an opportunity to meet and network with representatives from some of the nation’s most innovative organizations. Expected to attend are representatives from Confluence Technologies, FedEx, IBM, RedMorph Inc., SDLC Partners, Solutionary Inc., UPMC, and ZAP Solutions, among others. Participation in the expo is open only to Pitt students, but journalists are welcome to cover. The expo will take place Feb. 3 from 4-7 p.m.

A wide range of student projects—from a visualization of 1750s sailing routes to an interactive ranking of knowledge-based economies—will be on display during the iFest Project Showcase Showdown. Nominated by iSchool at Pitt faculty, each project highlights the creativity and technological skillsets of students across multiple disciplines. The project showcase will begin at 5 p.m. Feb. 4.

The Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition challenges doctoral students to present their highly technical graduate research to a lay audience in three minutes or less. The competition will be judged on presentation quality and audience comprehension. The winner will receive a $500 research travel grant. The competition will be held at 6 p.m. Feb. 4.

TEC 2016: Technology. Entrepreneurship. Creativity. is the culminating event of iFest 2016. The daylong conference—held from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Feb. 5—provides an opportunity for iSchool at Pitt faculty and students to meet and collaborate with community leaders from various organizations in Southwestern Pennsylvania. The event includes a series of informal presentations—much like the renowned Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) Talks—that will spotlight issues and innovations in the information science fields. TEC 2016 is free and open for attendance to the general public.

Ben Balter, a “government evangelist” at GitHub, Inc.—the world’s largest software development network—will deliver TEC 2016’s keynote address. Balter is a proponent of open source software, which is software whose code is available for modification or enhancement by anyone. Other speakers delivering TED Talk-like presentations include Sera Linardi, an assistant professor in Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs; Kevin Campbell, chief technology officer for Omnyx, LLC; Salwa Ismail, head of library information technology at Georgetown University; Meredith Grelli, founder of Wigle Whiskey; Shawn Patton, senior designer for Schell Games; and Bobby Schnabel, chief executive officer and executive director for the Association for Computing Machinery.

The University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences is one of the nation’s pioneering schools in the education of information professionals and a founding member of the iSchools Organization—an international consortium dedicated to advancing the information sciences. The iSchool at Pitt’s programs have consistently been ranked among the best in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. For more information on iFest 2016 or Pitt’s School of Information Sciences, e-mail ifestsis@pitt.edu or call 412-624-3981.

###

1/28/16/amm/jm/klf