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President of Liberia Speaks at Tech On Wednesday, September 13, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, the first woman ever elected head of an African state, gave her first major address on “The Role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Liberian Development” at Georgia Tech. The lecture reveals elements of her National ICT policy in the post-conflict redevelopment of the country. IAC and the College of Computing (CoC) co-sponsored Johnson-Sirleaf's visit, which included a public lecture, a media briefing, and a private luncheon. She also held a working meeting involving representatives from Hewlett Packard, IBM, Microsoft, the Open Society Institute, the World Bank, and other stakeholders in rebuilding Liberia's devastated ICT infrastructure.
“This visit demonstrates our interest and commitment to Africa and the country of Liberia,” says Michael Best, assistant professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and adjunct assistant professor in the CoC, who invited Johnson-Sirleaf. “It also underscores the mission of Georgia Tech's international plan and Tech's philosophy of engaging scholars in science and technology with policy issues and bridging the gap between cutting edge technology and international affairs.” |
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Poetry @ Tech Presents Two Major Poetry Events  Poetry @ Tech begins the '06-'07 year with Poetry @ Tech's Georgia Poets reading, featuring Martin Lammon, Cherryl Floyd Miller, and Tania Rochelle. The reading will take place at 4:30 P.M. on September 26, 2006, in the The Clary Theatre in the Bill Moore Student Success Center. Lammon holds the Fuller E. Callaway/Flannery O'Connor Chair in Creative Writing at Georgia College and State University, where he teaches poetry, creative nonfiction, and other creative writing courses, and is editor of Arts & Letters. Miller is the winner of the 2002 Hughes, Diop, Knight Poetry Award from the Gwendolyn Brooks Center in Chicago, and teaches at the Spruill Center for the Arts and the Marcus Jewish Community Center in Atlanta. Rochelle is the poetry editor for The Chattahoochee Review. Her first book, Karaoke Funeral, was winner of the 2003 Violet Reed Haas Prize, published by Snake Nation Press; she teaches creative writing at the Portfolio Center in Atlanta. Next up is the Fifth Annual Bourne Poetry Reading which will be held at 7:00 P.M. on October 25, 2006, in The LeCraw Auditorium in Georgia Tech's College of Management at Tech Square. The event features poets Frank Bidart, Major Jackson, and Gregory Orr. All Poetry @ Tech events are free and open to the public, and neither tickets nor reservations are required. |
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Modern Languages Launches New Program in Russia  This past summer, the School of Modern Languages (ML), launched a new program called Georgia Tech St. Petersburg, spearheaded by Assistant Professor Stuart Goldberg. Designed as intensive immersion program at the third-year level, the program has the added benefits of small class sizes and homestays with Russian families. The course of study includes six weeks of intensive language instruction at the Russian Academy of Sciences, and extensive excursions all led in Russian. |
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Professor Enhances Sustainable Development in Fiji As part of a multi-year International Cooperative Biodiversity Grant funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), Georgia Tech researchers and their colleagues at the University of the South Pacific and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography combine bio-prospecting on the coral reef with conservation and sustainable development in the coastal villages of Fiji. Kirk Bowman, Associate Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs (INTA), leads the sustainable development and conservation team, along with Professor Terry Snell, Associate Chair of Georgia Tech's School of Biology. One of the team's successes was to initiate the culturing of live rock in the village of Taqaqe on the Coral Coast. Previously, this aquarian product was harvested directly off the reef flats with crowbars. Now, the villagers plant blanks in their lagoon, and after 8-12 months the cultured live rock contains the necessary organisms to act as an aesthetically pleasing bio-filter used in many salt water aquaria, such as the Georgia Aquarium. In July and August 2006, the team reviewed the project in Taqaqe and began the process of expanding the live rock culturing project to three additional villages. In addition, Bowman consulted with the Fijian government on developing a Green Certification program for the tourism industry. |
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Computer Simulation Seminars Create "What if" Scenarios  Professor Michael Salomone, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs (INTA), and Professor Richard Fujimoto, College of Computing (CoC), are teaching seminars that study how the nature of computer simulation applies to strategic events in international relations. Underwritten by a grant from an anonymous donor, "Technology and War Gaming" studies how the nature of computer simulation applies to strategic events in international relations. Computer simulation has been used as an analytical tool in the natural sciences, business, commerce, government and, to a lesser extent, politics. The simulation focuses on the Schlieffen Plan, Germany's plan for the invasion of France at the beginning of World War I. Through computer simulation, students replicate the plan and test the various explanations given for the plan's failure. Ultimately, their collaboration extends and generalizes the simulator to create a more powerful and flexible experimentation tool that is suitable for execution in distributed computing environments. |
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Professor Appointed Committee Chair  In August, Seymour Goodman, Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs (INTA) with a joint appointment with College of Computing and Co-Director of Center for International Strategy, Technology, and Policy (CISTP), has been appointed as committee chair
on Improving Cybersecurity Research in the United States, National Research Council (NRC), Computer Science and Telecommunications Board
of the NRC. The NRC is the operating arm of the National Academies (NA), which includes the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The NA operates under a Congressional charter to provide the federal government with advice about science and technology policy. |
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Computer Games Are Sending A Message Ian Bogost, Assistant Professor, Literature, Communications, and Culture (LCC), and founder of Persuasive Games, a private electronic game design firm, thinks videogames can be morethan just entertainment. He says his new game, Disaffected!, "puts the player in the role of employees forced to service customers under the particular incompetences common to a Kinko's store." Such games are more complicated than a simple consumer vendetta, he explains. Since January, Disaffected! has been downloaded more than 150,000 times from Persuasive Games' web site, one of several places it can be obtained for free. |
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Centennial Remembrance Event of the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot  The Ivan Allen College Student Advisory Board, The Ivan Allen College Office of the Dean, and The GaTech Honors Program are hosting a panel discussion to commemorate the Centennial anniversary of the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot at 11:30am on September 28, in the Library East Commons.
This event is one of a wide range of activities taking place at local universities and at other venues around the city under the general auspices of the citywide Coalition to Remember the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot.
Panel members will include Ms. Rebecca Burns, author of Rage in The Gate City: The Story of the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot; Dr. June Dobbs Butts, granddaughter of John Wesley Dobbs (1882-1861), one of Atlanta's most distinguished African American civic and political leaders at the time of the 1906 riot; Prof. Larry Keating, Architecture; Ronald Bayor, Professor, History, Technology, and Society; Amanda Meng, IAC Student Advisory Board; A Coalition Representative; and descendants of some individuals impacted by the 1906 riot. |
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| Family Weekend Potentially Greater This Year The Annual Georgia Tech Family Weekend reception at Ivan Allen College, will take place on Friday, October 6, in the Louise Richardson Allen courtyard of the Habersham Building. This year, the Alumni Association has planned a full weekend of events for families to enjoy together, including seminars, campus bus tours, college and school receptions, Friday evening dinners, a Friday night outdoor movie, and a tailgate party prior to the football game with Maryland. |
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Art Lover's Unite Via the Web Developed by a multidisciplinary research group of faculty and graduate students from the Digital Media Graduate Program in the School of Literature, Communications, and Culture (LCC), in collaboration with Nurun/Ant Farm Inter-active, the interactive website iheartart (iheartart.com) application is a community site that brings together people, camera phones, and the Internet. The idea is to let people immediately share reactions to art, whether in a museum or on the street. The website acts as the focal point, hosting photos taken with camera phones, sent by participants directly from their phones. The Web server recognizes the phone number, so that when a user next visits the site and logs in, the photos are available in a personal gallery. Users also can add tags or additional comments and send the photos to friends. |
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