Bell Labs is celebrating the centennial of Claude Shannon’s birthday — April 30th, 1916 — by hosting a unique two day conference focusing on the future digital information economy and the impact of information theory on society through the years. This special event celebrates Shannon’s life and commemorates his profound impact with the creation of new Bell Labs Shannon Visionary Awards that will be presented at the event.
April 28, 2016
Morning Session
Keynote presentations by 5 global luminaries and visionaries who will be recognized with Bell Labs Shannon Visionary Awards. We are joined by:
- Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Alphabet Inc.
- Irwin Jacobs, Co-founder of Qualcomm
- Bob Metcalfe, Co-inventor of Ethernet and formulator of Metcalfe’s Law
- Henry Markram, Director of the Human Brain and Blue Brain projects
- Amber Case, Cyborg Anthropologist
Afternoon Session
We are remembering Shannon in a series of talks and fireside chats. Our invited guests include:- Elwyn Berlekamp
- Robert Gallager
- Leonard Kleinrock
- Sergio Verdu
This day includes a student competition in current information theory tools and applications.
Entertainment
The Human Digital Orchestra – a
collaboration with Bell Labs Experiment in Art and
Technology (EAT) and Stevens Institute of Technology – is
an artistic performance that we are creating especially for this celebration. This
performance is a re-start of the Experiments in Art and Technology
(EAT) tradition we started almost 50 years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiments_in_Art_and_Technology
The Human Digital Orchestra is a multimedia performance conducted by the movement of artists and the audience through space to visualize a network. Bell Labs' spatial localization techniques will be a central part of the creation of the performance, and the Nokia OZO camera will capture the performance in 360 degrees, in all its glory.
