MIT Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Laboratory for Computer Science Distinguished Lecture Series
Thursday, October 27, 1994
Building 34 Room 101
3:15pm Refreshments
3:30pm Lecture

Dr. Rick Rashid
Vice President for Research
Microsoft Corporation

Making the Future Happen

I began my career in computing in the mid-1970s working with the some of the earliest workstations and local area networks -- on the threshold of the personal computing revolution. Twenty years later, we stand on the threshold of another major generational change in computing -- the era of consumer computing. The challenge of the 1970s was creating a computing paradigm which allowed a large category of skilled professionals to make effective use of dedicated computers. Today the challenge is to build an infrastructure of software and computing devices that will be accessible to everyone in our society.

In this talk I'll discuss how changes in the structure of the computing industry have created an unprecedented opportunity for research organizations to have rapid and dramatic impact on society. I'll talk about my experiences in creating Microsoft Research and I'll describe the model we have developed for doing research in the context of a fast growing computer software company.