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School of Information 2021 Virtual Commencement

Sunday, May 16, 2021
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm PDT

Virtual Commencement, May 2021 — Berkeley School of Information

Virtual Commencement, May 2021 — Berkeley School of Information

Graduating students, faculty, families, and friends are invited to an online commencement ceremony honoring the I School’s Summer 2020, Fall 2020, and Spring 2021 graduates.

The keynote speaker will be Brad Smith, president of Microsoft.

The online event will honor graduates from all five School of Information degree programs: Ph.D. in information management and systems, Master of Information Management and Systems (MIMS), Master of Information and Data Science (MIDS), 5th Year Master of Information and Data Science (MIDS), and Master of Information and Cybersecurity (MICS).

We will be recognizing 51 MIMS graduates, 255 MIDS graduates, 21 5th Year MIDS graduates, 43 MICS graduates, and one Ph.D. graduate.

We will also be announcing the winners of several student awards:

The event video will be streamed at noon PDT; if you can’t be there promptly at noon, the video will be available for viewing any time after that.

Correction: The Summer 2020 Lily L. Chang Award–winning project “Eximius Hardware Key” is by Jorge Montanez, Daniel Omeh, and Yu Qiao. The Fall 2020 Lily L. Chang Award–winning project “LoggiCat: PII Protection in Logs” is by Steven Booth, Kai Tang, and Xueqi (Shirley) Xu. The on-screen graphics display the wrong names. We apologize for the error.

Keynote Speaker:
Brad Smith

President, Microsoft

As Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith leads a team of more than 1,500 business, legal and corporate affairs professionals located in 54 countries and operating in more than 120 nations. He plays a key role in spearheading the company’s work on critical issues involving the intersection of technology and society, including cybersecurity, privacy, artificial intelligence, environmental sustainability, human rights, immigration and philanthropy. In his recent bestselling book, coauthored with Microsoft’s Carol Ann Browne, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age, Smith urges the tech sector to assume more responsibility and calls for governments to move faster to address the challenges that new technologies are creating. The New York Times has called Smith “a de facto ambassador for the technology industry at large” and The Australian Financial Review has described him as “one of the technology industry’s most respected figures.” He has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress and other governments on these key policy issues.

Smith joined Microsoft in 1993, first spending three years in Paris leading the legal and corporate affairs team in Europe. In 2002, he was named Microsoft’s general counsel and spent the following decade leading work to resolve the company’s antitrust controversies with governments around the world and companies across the tech sector. Over the past decade, Smith has spearheaded the company’s work to advance privacy protection for Microsoft customers and the rights of DREAMers and other immigrants, including bringing multiple lawsuits against the U.S. government on these issues.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Smith was an associate and then partner at the law firm of Covington and Burling, where he is still remembered as the first attorney in the long history of the firm to insist (in 1986) on having a personal computer on his desk as a condition for accepting a job offer. In addition to his work at Microsoft, Smith is active in several civic organizations and in the broader technology industry. He has served on the Netflix board of directors since 2015 and chairs the board of directors of both Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) and the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship program.

Smith grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin, where Green Bay was the big city next door. He attended Princeton University, where he met his wife, Kathy. He earned his J.D. from Columbia University Law School and studied international law and economics at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland. He can be followed on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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Brad Smith
Brad Smith (photo courtesy of Microsoft)

Contact

If you have questions about this event, please contact Denise Simard.

Last updated:

May 18, 2021