Research Seminar Series: "The Heart of Innovation" with Dr. Mark Wegman, IBM
NYU CUSP is pleased to host our annual Research Seminar Series, featuring leading voices in the growing field of urban informatics. The seminars will examine real-world challenges facing cities and urban environments around the world, with topics ranging from citizen and social sciences to smart infrastructure.
"The Heart of Innovation''
In this session, Mark Wegman will discuss his recently published book "The Heart of Innovation'' (with a foreword from Arvind Krishna, Chairman and CEO of IBM). In this book, the authors distinguish between innovation and invention. Invention is about creating something new, or at least making a novel modification. Inventors want to create devices or software that can change the physical world, therefore may study many STEM topics. Innovation, on the other hand, is about changing people's lives, how they behave, what they use at work or at home. Innovators need to study people and the situations they find themselves in. Leaders of today’s top companies often talk about the importance of innovation, but don't talk about how to go about innovating. Wegman will delve into this need and the lessons we can learn from successful innovation case studies in this session. Attendees are encouraged to come with questions and a copy of the book, which the authors will sign.
About the Speaker
Mark Wegman is a co-author of the book, The Heart of Innovation. As an IBM Fellow and Chief Scientist Software Technology at IBM, Wegman works with the SynAGI team to build a neuronal system that can simulate many of the key functions of the animal and human brain and the evolutionary learning that leads to some of our innate knowledge.
Wegman is known for his work on compilers as a co-creator of Static Single Assignment form, which is used by all modern optimizing compilers. His notable work on Universal Hash Functions demonstrated that the advantages of hashing can be used no matter what the input is. Wegman has also been lauded for his involvement with data compression, which for a while was the strongest compression algorithm, and has been incorporated in a number of standards.
He has previously been elected an IBM, ACM and IEEE Fellow, a Distinguished Alumni from UC Berkeley, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
How to Attend
NYU CUSP Research Seminars are only open to faculty, students, and staff at NYU – they are not open to the public at this time. This event will be held in-person, but we are now offering hybrid access to attendees! If you'd like to attend virtually, check the bottom of your Eventbrite confirmation email for the Zoom link.