AIT: Aquincum Institute of Technology
To: Students & Faculty in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Engineering
From: Joseph O'Rourke <orourke@cs.smith.edu>
Subject: Budapest Summer School Opportunity
Many of you are familiar with the superb "Budapest Semesters in Mathematics" program (http://www.budapestsemesters.com/). A group in Budapest is creating a similar program (acronym AIT) focused on Information Technology broadly; more specifically, on Computer Engineering Design & Entrepreneurship, on Discrete Mathematics and Computer Science, and on Computational Biology. They have decided to start the program with a tuition-free summer school for a small group of students from selected institutions, including Smith. These students would not only get an exciting month exposed to the vibrant Hungarian intellectual tradition, they would also help to design the shape of the semester programs to follow. The dates of the summer school are June 10--July 12 2010, and the deadline for application is Feb 10th. Students apply directly to me, and I forward to AIT.
Dean Maureen Mahoney and I visited Budapest in October to help design the program and to meet the participants. We both returned thinking this will be a superb program, and a fantastic opportunity, especially for the summer school students. The faculty is first-rate. For example, Design will be taught by Erno" Rubik (of Rubik's Cube fame). Graph Theory will be taught by Gabor Simonyi, a well-known researcher from the Budapest Univ. of Tech. & Econ. who gave a great lecture while we visited, Algorithms for Bioinformatics will be taught by Istvan Miklos, who teaches also in the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics. The faculty is without exception first-rate.
As mentioned, the summer school will be tuition-free. Dean Mahoney thinks there may be sources to help pay for travel and lodging (the lodging costs will be modest).
The acronym AIT stands for the Aquincum Institute of Technology (http://ait-budapest.com/). "Aquincum" is the ancient Roman city from which the modern Budapest grew.
If you are intrigued, detailed information is available from the draft Program Announcement which I have placed on the web here: http://cs.smith.edu/~orourke/Budapest/ .