Two UC Campuses Celebrate a Decade of Cross-Disciplinary Innovation in Calit2

“If you want to fund your economy, you help fund research universities. You cannot outsource an idea until it’s invented.” Former Gov. Gray Davis

By Tiffany Fox | Dec. 13, 2010

Calit2 researcher Daniel Johnson launches a six-rotor hovercraft equiped with a pan-tilt-zoom camera -- designed as part of the institute's joint venture with National Geographic to develop technologies for expeditions and explorers.

In the span of a single decade, the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) has emerged as one of the world’s most advanced test beds for scientific visualization, virtual/physical collaboration and ‘green’ computing. It has forged partnerships with industrial and institutional powerhouses, including Qualcomm and National Geographic, Disney and Nokia. And it has done it all with only $1 in original funding from the State of California for every $7 in support Calit2 raised from federal, industry, foundation and international institutions – over $715 million in the past 10 years.

Calit2’s past and future converged at its University of California, San Diego and UC Irvine divisions Tuesday when founding “mothers and fathers” of the institute – as well as friends, supporters and affiliated staff and researchers – gathered to celebrate its 10th anniversary. At UCSD, more than 600 guests participated in a full day and evening of high-tech demos and commemorative events, including a keynote speech by former California Gov. Gray Davis.

Davis played a pivotal role in securing support and funding for Calit2 and the three other institutes that make up what are now called the Governor Gray Davis Institutes for Science and Innovation. To the Joint Plenary Ceremony that linked the UC San Diego division of Calit2 with its sister division at UC Irvine via real-time HD videoconferencing, Davis emphasized the role that research universities and their affiliated institutes play in stimulating the California economy.

“Research universities are not only the place where your children and grandchildren are educated — these universities create whole new economies,” he told those assembled. “If you want to fund your economy, you help fund research universities. You cannot outsource an idea until it’s invented.”

Former California Governor Gray Davis addresses a joint meeting of Calit2 participants at UC San Diego and (on screen) at UC Irvine, to mark the 10th Anniversary of the institute he helped create.

Davis went on to praise Calit2 for securing support from the private sector during an era that has seen state funding for education diminish.

“People all around the world are investing in these institutes, which means they’ll probably be around for decades,” he said. “I’m convinced the people in this audience will change the world. The best, I know, is yet to come.”

The two-hour opening ceremony was co-hosted by the Chancellors of Calit2’s two participating campuses – Marye Anne Fox at UCSD, and Michael Drake at UC Irvine – and they introduced a procession of academic, government and industry leaders who paved the way for Calit2’s creation and success. When the institutes were created in December 2000, Richard C. Atkinson was president of the University of California, and Robert C. Dynes was chancellor of UCSD.  And then-Dean Robert Conn of the Jacobs School of Engineering led the campus effort.

Today, Atkinson, Dynes and Conn all have their UCSD offices in Atkinson Hall, Calit2’s headquarters building at UCSD which was named in honor of the former UC President.

Some of Calit2’s founding fathers from industry attended by proxy – in the form of video messages.  Chief among them: Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs. The company committed $15 million to get the institute in San Diego off the ground, and has contributed over $20 million in its first decade:

“I think, in fact, it has turned out much better than we had anticipated,” said Jacobs, who was in Hong Kong for Qualcomm’s first-ever Board of Directors meeting in Asia. “Having something like Calit2 —an institution that is devoted to bringing together many different ideas and looking for topics that then allow some growth in different directions – I think that’s all very important.

Former Gov. Gray Davis lauded Calit2 for its successes and ability to keep its founding directors on the job. Pictured here: Davis with Ramesh Rao (left), director of the UCSD division of Calit2, and overall Calit2 director Larry Smarr (right).

“Qualcomm has grown quite a bit and become interested in a wide variety of areas, as has Calit2,” he continued, adding that both institutions have become interested in “not just communication and computing aspects, but a wide variety of applications from education to medicine to cultural activities.”

One of the UC Irvine division’s chief benefactors, Broadcom founder Henry Samueli, also pre-recorded his remarks.

Calit2’s “path forward” – and its four research themes pertaining to energy, environment, health and culture – was the subject of remarks delivered by Calit2 Director Larry Smarr. He noted that in order for Calit2 to make significant progress in these areas, the institute needs to harness the collective brain power of “the best minds in the world.”

“We can’t be parochial,” Smarr added. “There are amazing challenges on a scale humanity hasn’t faced before, so it can’t be business as usual. We don’t have the time.”

Smarr then introduced speakers and performers whose work reflect those challenges – challenges Calit2 researchers plan to tackle in the next 10 years and beyond. San Diego physician and venture capitalist Drew Senyei of Enterprise Partners Venture Capital spoke about the current state of health care in the United States; he remarked that with the help of technologies being developed at Calit2, health care can evolve to become more predictive, preventative, personalized and participatory.

From Irvine, UC Senior Vice President Daniel Dooley spoke about the challenges posed by climate change on the worldwide demand for food. The morning ceremony then ended on a high note – literally – when music professors Mark Dresser of UCSD and Michael Dessen of UCI performed a “telematic” concert via Calit2’s videoconferencing technology. The performance underscored the role that Calit2 can play in developing new technologies for long-distance collaboration, and the benefit that those technologies can deliver in a carbon-constrained world.

Current leaders and founders unveil plaques in San Diego and Irvine to mark the naming of the Gov. Gray Davis Institutes for Science and Innovation, made up of Calit2 and three sister institutes created in 2000 and 2001.

After an invitation-only luncheon, the UCSD division opened its doors to the wider campus and public communities. A packed agenda included two separate symposia featuring a total of 28 speakers, a laboratory open house, technology demos, musical performances and a late-night showcase for UCSD videos shot in the highest-resolution picture quality for use in digital cinema.

Visitors to Calit2 were also invited to tour Atkinson Hall’s six floors of laboratory space, where research teams work in fields as disparate as nanotechnology and disaster response. Calit2’s super-high-resolution HIPerSpace tiled display wall was the setting for a number of demos, and a Lego-equipped “Kids’Zone” for budding scientists and engineers was set up on the 5th floor. Many in attendance also gravitated toward the 3D displays in the first-floor Virtulab and StarCAVE, where visitors could “walk through” a magnified three-dimensional model of a human protein.

Nick Buck, recreation supervisor for the City of Encinitas and a visitor to Calit2’s 10th Anniversary open house, said he was “blown away” by the 3D displays.

“Before the event, I had no idea that it could be so effective in presenting research data and information,” he said. “The 3D modeling really brought information to life.  It was just amazing.”  

Following a brief evening reception, Calit2’s guests were treated to a performance in the Calit2 Auditorium by the institute’s newly appointed composer-in-residence and UCSD Music Department faculty member Rand Steiger. Former Calit2 composer-in-residence Roger Reynolds then took to the stage with introductory remarks followed by the world premiere screening of the a studio HD recording of his composition, “Sanctuary,” which was produced by Ross Karre with funding from Calit2 and shot entirely in Atkinson Hall.

During its Research Open House on Dec. 7, Calit2 offered tours of its facilities, including the StarCAVE 3D virtual-reality environment, dubbed one of the "30 Awesome College Labs" by Popular Science magazine.

The final event at Calit2’s 10th anniversary celebration was a Digital Cinema Showcase featuring 4K videos that offer four times the resolution of the highest-quality high-definition TV format. The Showcase featured the premiere of “Calit2 4K,” the first video about the institute to be shot entirely in the 4K format. The video features interviews with Calit2 director Larry Smarr and UCSD division director Ramesh Rao and includes sequences captured in various Atkinson Hall labs.

Among those in attendance at the Showcase was Ebonee Williams, who works for the Jacobs School of Engineering’s Bernard and Sophia Gordon Engineering Leadership Center. Like many visitors to Calit2 for its 10th anniversary, Williams has watched the institute grow from the seedling of an idea to the full-fledged research powerhouse that it is today.

“As someone who was there when Atkinson Hall opened to the public, it was fun to see where Calit2 has taken all that great technology.”