2008 ADMI Conference...

Once again, I am letting this blog slip my mind...

...and, once again, I will attempt to rectify this situation!

I was invited by several of my professors to attend the 2008 ADMI Conference this last weekend. ADMI is a group which deals with minority institutions, such as UDC, that deal in the STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics). I will give a more complete, in depth account of my experience in the next few days, but I wanted to go ahead and give some of the highlights now:

The backbone of the conference this year was Information Assurance; all of the faculty presentations had an underpinning related to the subject, and so did many of the student presentations. Perhaps I've been living under a rock for a while (if you've seen my apartment, you'll agree), but I've never heard the term used before last weekend. One would think, given that the entire focus of the conference was on the subject, that Information Assurance was the only Computer Science/Information Technology job out there! Personally, I am not convinced. The Internet -- no, the entire networking infrastructure -- needs to be completely overhauled. There are far too many exploits, bugs, issues, etc. with the systems that we have in place today, and these problems will only increase in the future. I'm ranting now, but this issue really bugs me. Why put so much emphasis on Information Assurance, when the problems that it tries to correct (read: cover for) are so deeply rooted.

Ok, I'm done (for now...).

Oh, yes. The ADMI conference...

Anyway, the student presentations were quite good. There were about ten or so oral presentations, and at least twice as many posters. Most of the students were quite knowledgeable about their topics, which is quite different than some of the other conferences that I have attended in the recent past.

OK, I promise a longer, more detailed assessment next time...
-Ravi