The Bell Labs Shannon Conference on the Future of the Information Age A two-day conference to celebrate Claude Shannon’s centennial and explore the continued impact of information theory on our society. Date: April 28-29, 2016 Location: Murray Hill, New Jersey Attendees: 250 leaders, visionaries and researchers from industry, academia and Bell Labs Celebrate the dawn of a new digital era We are at the dawn of a new digital era, where everyone and everything will be digitally connected and controllable, allowing an unprecedented level of automation and consequently the ability to ‘create time’. The extent of disruption to human existence local – physical economy. The magnitude of Bell Labs is celebrating the centennial of will be such that this will likely be viewed change will be comparable in the departure Shannon’s birthday — April 30th, 1916 as the 6th technological revolution of the from the past and impact on the future - to — by hosting a unique 2-day conference modern era. This revolution will profoundly the agricultural revolution 12 millennia ago focusing on a discussion of the future digital change the global techno-economic fabric, and the industrial revolution 2 centuries ago. information economy and the impact of massively shifting towards a new global- This revolution is rooted in the dawn of the information theory on society today and local paradigm, where any digital ‘good’ is Information Age, characterized by the shift in the digital future. This special event accessible, anywhere. from industrial activity to an information- celebrates Shannon’s life and influence based economy, based on emergence of and commemorates his profound impact Furthermore, with the emergence of ever digital computing and digital transmission with the creation of new Bell Labs Shannon more sophisticated 3D printing techniques, techniques, which were in turn based largely Visionary Awards presented at the event. physical goods would be recreated locally on the information theoretic concepts on demand at any time in a new digital + defined by Claude Elwood Shannon. April 28-29, 2016, Murray Hill, New Jersey The Bell Labs Shannon Conference on the Future of the Information Age We begin our 2-day conference with a These distinguished guests will entertain Day Two - April 29 gathering of the leaders and visionaries us with personal recollections of Shannon, We are hosting a series of technical in the Information Society, with as well as an exhibit of previously presentations in a technical symposium provocative and informed discussion unreleased Shannon memorabilia. outlining the latest research built upon of our digital past, present, and future, Shannon’s work in both traditional In his groundbreaking paper, “A in the classic Bell Labs tradition. There Research Demonstrations communications as well as in areas such Mathematical Theory of Communication” will be a student competition, highlights and Student Competition as bioinformatics, economic systems (Bell System Technical Journal, July and of Shannon and his life, and a technical Bell Labs researchers will showcase and social networks. October, 1948) Claude Shannon laid symposium on current research. their latest innovations based on new the formal foundation of a quantitative applications of information theory to Our notable invitees include: science of digital information. This theory Day One - April 28 multiple domains, from social graphs to • Emmanuel Abbe grew, in part, out of the field of statistical Morning Session wireless beamforming and novel future • Gerhard Kramer mechanics, where the notion of entropy Keynote presentations by 5 global optical transmission systems. • Vince Poor had been introduced as a measure luminaries and visionaries who will be • Muriel Medard of disorder in large configurations of recognized with Bell Labs Shannon Invited students will present their • Shlomo Shamai atoms and molecules in random physical Visionary Awards. We are joined by: research in Information Theory tools and • Amin Shokrollahi systems. Shannon’s seminal work showed • Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of applications in a competitive forum. • Christopher Sims how entropy, appropriately redefined and Alphabet Inc. • Emre Telatar applied, provided the mathematical means • Irwin Jacobs, Co-founder of Qualcomm Evening • David Tse to measure the information content of • Bob Metcalfe, Co-inventor of Ethernet The day will culminate with the premiere • Michelle Effros signals and systems. Immediate areas of and formulator of Metcalfe’s Law performance of the Human Digital Orchestra • Olgica Milenkovic application were the quantification of the • Henry Markram, Director of the Human — a new Bell Labs ‘Experiment in Art and • Andrea Goldsmith capacity limits of communication in noisy Brain and Blue Brain projects Technology (EAT)’, together with Stevens • Rudiger Urbanke channels, and shortly afterwards the limits • Amber Case, Cyborg Anthropologist. Institute of Technology, followed by a of data compression and reliable storage. gala dinner. Shannon’s formal foundations were Afternoon Session broadened subsequently to many other We are remembering Shannon in a series application areas, including cryptography, of talks and fireside chats. Our invited natural language processing, statistical guests include: inference, neurobiology and more recently to • Elwyn Berlekamp evolution, ecology, quantum computing, • Robert Gallager linguistics, pattern recognition and • Leonard Kleinrock progressively into many areas of what • Sergio Verdu we now call data analytics. April 28-29, 2016, Murray Hill, New Jersey To register for the Conference www.etouches.com/shannoncentennial The Bell Labs Shannon Conference on the Future of the Information age April 28-29, 2016, Murray Hill, New Jersey.