6 ms·
Ouch, sorry Waterloo.
by astrodust 10y ago
Ouch, sorry Waterloo.
- AdamSC1 10y agoRight? This is an odd choice. Google just built their massive new campus in Waterloo, and University of Waterloo is one of the best engineer schools and computer science schools in the world, but they build this an hour away in a market that is much more expensive? An odd choice for sure.
- unavoidable 10y agoGeoff Hinton has deep roots with the rival University of Toronto and the surrounding ecosystem. His role and influence undoubtedly played a large part in this decision.
- goodJobWalrus 10y ago> Right? This is an odd choice. Why? UofT / Hinton are doing the AI here...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- kitcar 10y agoIt's part research center, part marketing expense...
- karpathy 10y agoI wasn't too surprised. If you look at the Vector Institute website (http://vectorinstitute.ai/#people http://vectorinstitute.ai/#people), you'll see many additional well-known researchers involved, in addition to Geoff Hinton: David Duvenaud, Sanja Fidler, Brendan Frey, Roger Grosse, Geoffrey Hinton, Jordan Jacobs, Tomi Poutanen, Daniel Roy, Raquel Urtasun, Richard Zemel. there is a lot more momentum at UofT in this specific area of research, more than there is at Waterloo.
- astrodust 10y agoThe University of Toronto is probably a lot better funded than Waterloo, too, has a massive student base, and has connections to other local universities that are also much larger than Waterloo like York and Ryerson. This selection will certainly put a dent in Waterloo's reputation, though with any luck they'll be able to capitalize on it in some capacity due to their proximity.
- canistr 10y agoSure, but Toronto and Waterloo have different reputations when it comes to Engineering and Computer Science. And if it really matters to you that Waterloo be involved, it's obviously worth pointing out that Pearl Sullivan (Dean of Waterloo Engineering) is on the Board of Directors for the Vector Institute anyway.
- 029r0823jr 10y ago> This selection will certainly put a dent in Waterloo's reputation, though with any luck they'll be able to capitalize on it in some capacity due to their proximity. Highly doubt it. Waterloo is known for being mediocre/trash for CS research. People go to Waterloo to get into industry and not academics.
- AvenueIngres 10y ago>Waterloo is known for being mediocre/trash for CS research Are you out of your mind? Do you know why Waterloo's School of Computer Science is named after David R. Cheriton? Yeah, the same DRC who made a major exit to Cisco, seed funded Google and hold an emeritus professorship at Stanford. A sizeable chunk of the people who published Spark have done their undergrad' or research masters at UW. Waterloo is definitely top-notch at the undergrad', perhaps less impressive than schools with bigger endowment at the research level, but far from being "trash". Tons of Waterloo profs are on the steering committees of major CS conferences (VLDB most notably). This comment is so puerile, it has to be written by some jealous and petty undergraduate student. Or so I hope.
- batty 10y ago
- anthonyc51 10y agoWaterloo is good at churning out entry-level software engineers. UofT is much stronger for ML and research in general.
- rand_r 10y agoFrom the perspective of someone who's lived in both cities, it makes perfect sense. Toronto is a much much nicer place to live and it'll be way easier to attract talent to it. I wouldn't move back to Waterloo for any amount of money.
- trapperkeeper79 10y agoWhy? I've never lived there but it seems one of the few places with tech jobs and houses that don't cost a million bucks.
- bigmanwalter 10y agoWaterloo is great for backyards and parking. Toronto is great for urban living. Take your pick :)
- obstacle1 10y agoThere's nothing there. It's a suburban wasteland. Yes, you can buy a house there more cheaply than in Toronto. But is owning a pile of bricks worth living in a wasteland? Personal preference, as they say.
- JabavuAdams 10y agoFew people want to live in Waterloo when they could live in Toronto instead.
- mhkhung 10y agoUofT is one of the best research university in the world, at the PhD level. Waterloo is best at producing the best engineers at the undergrad level.
- FT_intern 10y agoWaterloo is best at bleeding great Canadian engineers to the USA
- 029r0823jr 10y agoBecause U of T engineers decide to stay in Toronto out of the goodness of their hearts...? If an engineer stays in Canada it's certainly not because they're being adequately compensated.
- david-gpu 10y agoSome of us would rather live in a country with better welfare even if we won't directly benefit from it. Compensation is good enough up here IMO.
- perhonen 10y agoSo does UofT - I myself and at least a dozen other 1T7 grads I know personally are headed south as soon as we graduate. This is a Canada-wide problem which won't be fixed unless salaries equalize.
- trapperkeeper79 10y agoSpot on. This new institute (and other govt efforts like it) all fail to answer this fundamental question - why would someone work at half the pay (or less) if they were a Canadian citizen? It is a chicken-and-egg problem .. salaries and labour pool quality go hand in hand.
- bigmanwalter 10y ago
- mooneater 10y agoWell Pearl Sullivan is a director (Dean of Engineering at UWaterloo)
- lazyant 10y agoThere are three sponsor companies from Waterloo (granted, not the big ones) so not ruling out something in Waterloo