Events Calendar

WEBINAR SERIES: Digital Technologies for COVID-19

Our next webinar in the continuing series will feature a double-header of talks as well. First, Prof. John Heidemann from USC Viterbi's Information Sciences Institute will present his work analyzing Internet traffic during the COVID-19 outbreak. Then, Dr. Animesh Pathak, a Viterbi industry alum who heads R&D and Engineering at myKaarma, will discuss the experiences of an automobile business software company in addressing unique challenges posed by COVID-19.


Talk 1: A First Look at Measuring the Internet during Novel Coronavirus to Evaluate Quarantine (MINCEQ) -- by John Heidemann

Abstract: Measuring the Internet during Novel Coronavirus to Evaluate Quarantine (RAPID-MINCEQ) is a project to measure changes in Internet use during the COVID-19 outbreak of 2020.

Today social distancing and work-from-home/study-from-home are the best tools we have to limit COVID's spread. But implementation of these policies varies in the US and around the global, and we would like to evaluate participation in these policies.

This project plans to develop two complementary methods of assessing Internet use by measuring address activity and how it changes relative to historical trends. Changes in the Internet can reflect work-from-home behavior. Although we cannot see all IP addresses (many are hidden behind firewalls or home routers), early work shows changes at USC and ISI.

This project is support by an NSF RAPID grant for COVID-19 and just began in May 2020, so this talk will discuss directions we plan to explore.

Bio: John Heidemann is a principal scientist at the University of Southern California/Information Sciences Institute (USC/ISI) and a research professor at USC in Computer Science. At ISI he leads the ANT (Analysis of Network Traffic) Lab, studying how to observe and analyze Internet topology and traffic to improve network reliability, security, protocols, and critical services. He is a senior member of ACM and fellow of IEEE.


Talk 2: Tales from the field: addressing COVID-19 challenges from the perspective of automotive business software -- by Animesh Pathak

Abstract: COVID-19 caught everyone by surprise, including businesses that have traditionally relied on in-person contact to serve their customers. In the view of changing social norms and new social distancing safety guidelines, many businesses have had to quickly pivot or risk closing down.

In this talk, I will share observations from the US and Canadian automotive dealership industry's efforts to overcome these new challenges, and the resulting process and software changes that had to be made to enable their vision, including the recent "Mobile Service" initiative by a major luxury automotive brand. I will share a glimpse of the various interesting system-building and computer science problems arising from the new reality that is here to stay, and the resulting opportunities for real-world impact to livelihoods of workers.

Bio: Dr. Animesh Pathak is the Head of R&D and Head of Engineering at myKaarma, where he is responsible for the overall reliability, scalability, and security of myKaarma products in the areas of unified communication, payments, video inspections, scheduling, and logistics for Automotive OEMs and Dealerships in the US and Canada. myKaarma is headquartered in Long Beach, California, with offices in Canada and India.

Previously, Dr. Pathak was a Research Scientist at Inria in Paris. He received his Ph.D in Computer Engineering from the Viterbi School of Engineering at USC, and the B.Tech. degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (IIT BHU), where he was awarded the Institute Gold Medal.

WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bS2IGZDMTw2aymiLaBAzIw

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Bhaskar Krishnamachari