1. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW1 Student Committee Report Aylin Yener, Penn State Presented at the BoG meeting, Porto, Portugal

2. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW2 Outline Previous Events: – CISS 2008 Upcoming Events: – ISIT 2008 Initiatives – The new web-site First Annual School of Information Theory Update

3. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW3 Events since Allerton 07: CISS 2008, Princeton NJ March 20, 2008: we organized a research discussion round table event for all participating students. About 90 students attended the lunch event held at the Friend Center convocation room at Princeton. Lalitha Sankar led the organization. 6 research topics discussed and led by the student volunteers. –“ MIMO Channels ”, leader: Jimmy Chui, Princeton. – “ Network Coding ” leader: Anna Pantelidou, UMD. –“ Sparse Representations and Compressed Sensing ”, leader: Eugene Brevdo, Princeton. –“ Ad-hoc Networks ” leader: Sharon Betz, Princeton – “ Network and Information Security ”, leaders: Lifeng Lai, Ruoheng Liu, Princeton, and Prasanth Ananthapadmanabhan, UMD. – “ Network Optimization ”, leaders: Chee Wei Tan, Princeton, Joydeep Acharya, WINLAB, Rutgers.

4. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW4 Upcoming Events: ISIT 2008, Toronto Two lunch time events planned Monday: Round table research discussion Thursday: Panel Free T-shirt as is done every year In collaboration with the local organization of ISIT (R. Adve, T.J. Lim)

5. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW5 New Initiatives: Student Committee Web-site The student committee web-site has been static html and was maintained by a volunteer student. –We feel that a content based architecture will be much more useful: –Uploads/interaction takes place without delay. –Students can upload material –We can make available detailed records of past events. Preparations are currently underway to switch to Plone (Ack: Our “new” webmaster Anand Sarwate)

6. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW6 New Initiatives: Volunteers We need to reach out to more volunteers to actively participate. Potential new student chairs will be sought as the current ones transition to post-student life. Action item: posts within the committee for better defined tasks of the committee.

7. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW7 Update: First Annual School of Information Theory

8. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW8 Organizing Committee for 2008 Program Chairs: –Aylin Yener, Penn State –Gerhard Kramer, Bell Labs Student Applications: –Sennur Ulukus, UMD –Ivana Maric, Stanford Publicity&Web: –Nick Laneman, Notre Dame –Lalitha Sankar, Princeton –Brooke Shrader, UMD

9. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW9 From the proposal (Sept 07) School of Information Theory: Our way to pay it forward to our society’s future generations Lectures by renowned members of our society. Students interact with their peers. Students interact with senior scientists and get feedback on their work. Students get exposed to context and “big picture” early on. The school will help foster friendships and collaboration for future academic and industrial scientists and promote IT.

10. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW10 From the proposal (Sept 07): Who will attend? Any graduate student or post-doc eligible to apply Students apply for the school with their cvs and presentation/poster title Students will each give a 10min talk and present a poster on the same topic for longer more detailed interactions. Cap:100 students (plan for 50-60) No registration Fee Ideally: NO COST to attendees Reality: Travel grants as much as budget allows

11. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW11 Calendar, Location for 2008 The inaugural school of Information Theory will take place June 1, Sunday – June 5, Thursday 2008 at the University Park Campus, Penn State, State College, PA.

12. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW12 6h 3.5h

13. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW13 Instructors Vince Poor: Keynote Toby Berger: TBA Muriel Medard: Network Coding David Tse: IT of Wireless Networks: Breaking the log-jam

14. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW14 Call for participation

15. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW15 Response The response to the school has been above and beyond all our expectations: We received over 150 applications! Original organization, preparations and budget was envisioning 60 attendees.

16. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW16 Organization We have made new arrangements to be able to accommodate 120 students and a total of 135 attendees. Given the budget constraints and the large number of attendees, we had to first verify from applicants whether they could attend without travel support. To accommodate 120 students, we will have a mix of 10min talks and poster sessions (as opposed to both per student).

17. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW17 New 2008 Schedule For a total of 135 attendees: 120 students, instructors, keynote speaker, organizers, other academics June 1: Evening Reception 6-8pm June 2 and 3: 4.5h instruction; 2h student presentations June 4: 3h instruction, 1h panel, 2.5h student presentations, evening banquet June 5: 1h keynote; 5.5h student presentations

18. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW18 2008 Schedule June 2June 3June 4June 5 BF Opening remarks 3X90min Lectures Muriel Medard: “Network Coding” (2 breaks, lunch) BF 3X90min Lectures David Tse: “Information Theory of Wireless Networks: Breaking the logjam” (2 breaks, lunch) 2X90 Lectures: Toby Berger: TBA Panel: TBA Student Presentations 3:30-6pm Banquet 7-9:30 Keynote: Vince Poor: TBA Student presentations 10:30-6pm Student presentations 4-6pm Student presentations 4-6pm

19. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW19 2008 Budget The lectures and presentations will be held in Penn State classrooms. Classrooms: free of charge. Breaks: in the vicinity of classrooms. Reception, Banquet: at the campus hotel (NLI) We have made every effort to keep the misc expenses as well as food/breaks break costs down. The numbers we currently have are given in the next page in detail.

20. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW20 2008 Budget (min total: $35800) Banquet dinner $ 5700 Reception $ 2800 Lunches total: $ 7000 Breaks total: $ 7000 Breakfasts total: $ 4300 Food total $26800 Other (easels,poster boards, badges, registration packets) $ 2300 Multimedia (pics etc) and contingency $3000 Instructor travel support $2700 Not including student travel grants. +

21. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW21 Funding Status for 2008 so far Society: 10k commitment (Sept 07) Penn State Networking and Security Research Center (CSE) 3k Princeton University EE: 3k Penn State EE: 3k DARPA: 10k (incoming) NSF: Proposal in submission stage (likely will result in10k travel support)

22. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW22 Funding Status for 2008 summary 32k+ in non-travel support expenses 29k committed to general expenses Likely 10k from NSF but likely for travel grants only. We request an additional $10k from the society to cover the expenses properly and provide travel grants.

23. May 4, 2008A. Yener, ITW23 Dedication We dedicate the First School of Information Theory to our late colleague Sergio Servetto.