Innovation

Status of Videoconference AI Bots at Berkeley

June 13, 2024
Bill Allison & Luis Hernández Muñiz

We have received many questions about the current status of AI technology addons for University video conferences, especially OtterPilot and Zoom AI Companion. These type of AI meeting productivity addons are rapidly evolving; you can find the latest information and recommendations on the Berkeley IT service page for Zoom (which is the University's standard for video...

Berkeley's 3 Pillar Computing Infrastructure Strategy

Berkeley's 3 Pillar Infrastructure Model

Bill Allison, UC Berkeley CTO

May 7, 2024

UC Berkeley developed our 3 Pillar Infrastructure computing strategy in 2021 to guide investments in the University computing infrastructure, from on-campus data center spaces (the "local pillar"), new investment in data center capacity in partnership with NASA at Moffett Field (the "offsite colocation pillar"), and a public cloud pillar. This represents a strategic evolution designed to address the University’s diverse and growing computational needs, with the 3 pillars...

Berkeley AVC of People and Culture talks AI and Innovation for Staff

Eugene Whitlock, Berkeley's AVC of People & Culture shared his thoughts on the need for innovation and experiments by staff when it comes to AI.

UC San Diego TritonGPT Demo

Join the UC Berkeley AI Community for a presentation from our colleagues from UC San Diego, who will present about TritonGPT, a solution built on an advanced open source large language model (LLM) that is capable of answering a wide range of questions about UC San Diego. We will have a demo and an overview of the technology, as well as hearing about some of the considerations in building this service and use-cases they have chosen to deploy for UCSD.

Conference notes -- Language and AI: Generating Interdisciplinary Connections and Possibilities at Berkeley

February 28, 2024
Bill Allison

The Berkeley Language Center and the Language and AI working group at the Townsend Center for the Humanities held a conference this week-- Language and AI: Generating Interdisciplinary Connections and Possibilities. Organized around three pillars (research, industry...

Governance and Community for AI at Berkeley

December 19, 2023
Bill Allison
This post outlines how I am thinking about how governance and community work together to support a Berkeley AI strategy, aligned with the University of California’s AI Guiding Principles. I’m making the case for a first layer of foundational governance needed to get the ball rolling— establishing basic contracts, security and data reviews, baseline risk assessments— and then getting the tools into peoples’ hands to learn and experiment. We created the UC Berkeley AI Community to leverage the strength of our diverse population and perspectives, to tap the community to accelerate the development and exchange of ideas and information towards building a more sophisticated institutional understanding of AI. Community engagement speeds the path to effective functional governance; ie, having the right existing decision-making bodies and roles making intentional choices about where and when Berkeley uses and does not use AI.

Launching the UC Berkeley AI Community and the Berkeley AI Meetup

October 9, 2023
Bill Allison
Artificial intelligence is just beginning to come of age. The latest wave of new AI capabilities has transformed what's possible in meaningful ways, reminiscent of the rise of the internet or the inception of public cloud and mobile computing. These technological advances along with an acceleration of new capabilities will deeply impact core functions of teaching, learning, research and administration at all universities. Advances are occurring across many domains of AI-- and the UC Berkeley AI Community encompasses this wider interpretation-- from machine learning, natural language processing, robotics, including generative AI and also inquiry into AI ethics, explainable AI and knowledge representation.

Call for Proposals: Berkeley Changemaker Technology Innovation & Connected Campus Grants

March 2, 2020
Bill Allison
We are now accepting proposals for Berkeley's first-ever CTO Technology Innovation program. The CTO is looking to support proposals that will enhance the University's operations, bolster its research endeavors or help transform instruction and the classroom experience. The innovation project you propose should involve some combination of people, process, technology and information and support one or more of UC Berkeley's three key campus strategies:

Meet the Berkeley Changemaker Technology Innovation Grants Review Committee

June 15, 2020
Bill Allison
Submissions have closed, and the review committee is evaluating this year's applicants to the Berkeley Changemaker Technology Innovation Grant program. The grant program supports proof of value experiments that enhance the University's operations, bolster its research endeavors, and help transform instruction and the classroom experience. As advisor Jean Cheng puts it, "At a time when the campus is looking for solutions to new and urgent problems, the CTO grant program is an exciting opportunity to make strategic contributions to projects that are likely to have a significant impact. We were thrilled to see compelling proposals from diverse groups and corners of campus."

Berkeley Changemaker Technology Innovation Grant Awardees Announced

June 25, 2020
Bill Allison
Back in February, we began to put out the call for innovation proposals from all over campus, asking them to share their alignment with the Chancellor's top strategic priorities and also to address what the University needs NOW. For a top research University, no matter what hard times we're having, innovation isn't just a "nice to have" - it's an essential ingredient to maintaining our excellence and scaling access & equity for a Berkeley education. Many proposals we received tackle Berkeley's response to remote learning beyond Zoom during COVID-19.