Meu d'amusement

After a morning of class, we had some Gelato in Yverdon-les-Bains and then took a bus down to the Cisco campus in Rolle. There they had various executives describe the function of the company. A director of Engineering and Innovation spoke on those topics, specifically on innovation and how ideas and inventions must have economic impact, be delivered to consumers to become innovations. An Account Manager spoke about interacting with the customer and selling things that may not yet exist, whilst consulting the engineers and business units who are in charge of emerging technologies to maintain a clear vision of what may become possible soon. A director in Global Supply Chain Management spoke on how Cisco integrates the resources of its own and external manufacturing plants to achieve truly global, non-stop development, production, delivery, and support of its products.

After that, we headed to the EPFL campus, the second-ranked university in Europe in the areas of technology and computers. They were 18 in the world by the same study. There we heard two presentations from professors who are pursuing some very fascinating projects. One was in processing genetic and other data to build the "tree of life" mapping the history of biological evolution of species known to man. He is primarily working in the field of computational biology, but his endeavors take him deep into both fields (computation and biology). The other was in systems that seamlessly and appropriately make use of multiple input modes to allow the user the most productive workflow possible. Some studies they have conducted to help with the applications and software solutions developed in this project showed in what proportions users chose to speak, point with the mouse or stylus, or type on the keyboard. They also showed in what primary computing tasks each of these input methods was favored most of all. Quite fascinating stuff! As good hosts, they then put out a light dinner of dried meats, cheese, and red and white wine.

Other than that, this evening has been a nice one; finally able to catch up on some schoolwork and personal life. And now it's Friday!