MIT has decided to invest $1 billion to address the
challenges brought by the prevalence of computing and the rise of artificial
intelligence (AI). Within this, $350 million will go to the foundation of MIT
Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, named after the CEO and co-founder
of Blackstone. This new branch of MIT will serve as the center for
interdisciplinary work in computer science, AI, data science, and related
fields seeking to establish its position as a key entity within these fields.
This act from MIT records the largest investment that an American educational
institution in AI as well as the biggest change to MIT since the 1950s. The
college is currently scheduled to open its doors on September 2019 but a new
building, specifically for these fields, is scheduled to be built by 2022. MIT
Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing will create 50 new faculty positions
as well bring a new deanship for the college itself.
I believe that MIT has
made this investment not only to establish position at the very top but to
bring new minds together to propel these fields towards the future at a faster
rate. The college will develop a new curricula that connects computer science
and AI with other disciplines and you can expect new innovative technologies to
come with this new college to support its courses and research. MIT is without
a doubt planning on creating a new legacy within its computing discipline. They
have proved once again its commitment to enhance education in technological
disciplines, make it accessible to those who wish to pursue it and advance our
society through its numerous researches. MIT as always been ever present within
the top engineering colleges in the United States and with this moves they have
guaranteed their spot for decades to come.
Source: http://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-reshapes-itself-stephen-schwarzman-college-of-computing-1015
Thanks for this post - super interesting! I wondered about two things after reading this post:
ReplyDelete(1) how did they raise a billion dollars and who were the most significant contributors? I also wondered whether any companies contributed to this effort?
(2) with this huge push for technical efforts in higher education, why are we not seeing the same strides for technological education in K-12?
For the first part of your question, i cant really answer with any certainty but MIT does get a lot of its funding from the private sector, so you would expect that companies are involved in this project. As for the second part of your question, well all the money that is being invested is going into research and not really education. The results of such a huge project will definitely have an impact on education, but in my opinion the primary goal is for MIT to establish itself as a powerhouse in AI. Investing money in K-12 is a competently different situation that servers a completely different goal.
ReplyDelete