2007 Conference Information: Keynote Speakers
Donna Dubinsky
Numenta Founder Donna Dubinsky serves as CEO and Board Chair. She brings business operations leadership and experience to the Numenta team. Numenta also marks the third venture where Donna has teamed with Jeff Hawkins. Donna first joined Jeff in 1992 to become president and CEO of Palm, a position she held through Palm’s acquisition by U.S. Robotics and subsequently 3Com Corporation. In 1998, Donna and Jeff co-founded Handspring, creator of the category-defining Treo smartphone. In October 2003, Handspring merged with the Palm hardware group to create a new company, palmOne, Inc. (now called Palm, Inc.). Previously, Donna spent 10 years at Apple Computer in a variety of sales, sales support and logistics functions both at Apple and at Claris, Apple’s software subsidiary.
Donna holds a B.A. from Yale University in History, and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School. She currently serves as a director of Palm, Inc., and is a Trustee of the Computer History Museum and of Yale University.
About Numenta: The first release of the Numenta Platform for Intelligent Computing (NuPIC) is a research release targeted at sophisticated developers for the purpose of education and experimentation. NuPIC implements a hierarchical temporal memory system (HTM) patterned after the human neocortex. NuPIC will be used on problems that, generally speaking, involve identifying patterns in complex data. The ultimate applications likely will include vision systems, robotics, data mining and analysis, and failure analysis and prediction.
Numenta is committed to creating and supporting an open, collaborative community of companies and individuals interested in working on HTM systems. Concurrent with the Numenta Platform release, Numenta also has launched developer community tools and training materials.
Maria Klawe
Maria Klawe became the fifth president of Harvey Mudd College on July 1, 2006. Prior to joining HMC, she served as dean of engineering and professor of computer science at Princeton University. During her time at Princeton, Maria led the School of Engineering and Applied Science through a strategic planning exercise that created an exciting and widely embraced vision for the school. At Harvey Mudd College, she is leading a similarly ambitious strategic planning initiative known as “HMC 2020: Envisioning the Future.”
Maria joined Princeton from the University of British Columbia where she served as dean of science from 1998 to 2002, vice president of student and academic services from 1995 to 1998 and head of the Department of Computer Science from 1988 to 1995. Prior to UBC, Maria spent eight years with IBM Research in California, and two years at the University of Toronto. She received her Ph.D. (1977) and B.Sc. (1973) in Mathematics from the University of Alberta.
Maria has made significant research contributions in several areas of mathematics and computer science including functional analysis, discrete mathematics, theoretical computer science, human-computer interaction, gender issues in information technology, and interactive-multimedia for mathematics education. Her current research focuses on the development and use of multi-modal applications to assist people with aphasia and other cognitive impairments.
Maria is a past president of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) in New York, chair of the Board of Trustees of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology in Palo Alto, and a trustee of the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics in Los Angeles and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley.
In the past Maria has held leadership positions with the American Mathematical Society, the Computing Research Association, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the Canadian Mathematical Society. Maria was elected as a fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery in 1995 and as a founding fellow of the Canadian Information Processing Society in 2006.
Other awards include Vancouver YWCA Women of Distinction Award in Science and Technology (1997), Wired Woman Pioneer (2001), Canadian New Media Educator of the Year (2001), BC Science Council Champion of the Year (2001), University of Alberta Distinguished Alumna (2003), Nico Habermann Award (2004), and honorary doctorates from Acadia University (2006), Dalhousie University (2005), Queen’s University (2004), the University of Waterloo (2003) and Ryerson University (2001).