[Adapt] FW: Research project funding oppo. globally: Kinect for Windows SDK projects for H2 FY12

Thu Nov 10 15:42:19 CST 2011

Hi guys,

MSRA is calling for a proposal on an interesting research project based on
the Kinect made by Microsoft (http://www.xbox.com/en-US/kinect ) . It's
basically a motion sensor which can be used in combination with the Xbox 360
game console. Because of my connection with MSRA, I have been invited to
submit a proposal. Please read the following email and let me know soon if
you have any good idea for a suitable project. 

Cheers,

Kenny

From: Lolan Song 
Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2011 2:12 PM
To: Miran Lee; MSRA University Relations; Baining Guo; Ming Zhou; Xin Tong;
Xiang Cao (MSR); Frank Soong; Weiwei Xu; Shixia Liu; Eric Chang; Steve Lin;
Guobin Wu
Cc: Hsiao-Wuen Hon; MSRA SLT; MSRA Extended Leadership Team
Subject: RE: Research project funding oppo. globally: Kinect for Windows SDK
projects for H2 FY12

This is a very unique opportunity for us to nominate some proposals from our
region which are worth funding of $100K - a quite significant amount
comparing to our typical funding sizes of $15-50K (depends on country,
project scope, etc.), PLUS our research group's time to engage the academic
PIs on an on-going basis to ensure a good outcome at the end.

I hope you can think about a Kinect-based project from the following
perspectives:

.         A substantial project which you want to explore but do not have
time/resource/domain knowledge/expertise, and you know a good academic
partner (see the criteria in Miran's mail) who want to work with you to make
it a good collaborative project;

.         Has unique Asian flavor from language, culture, and/or social
aspect perspective

.         Has good justification to spend $100K (since most of the
Kinect-based projects do not require much funding at all), e.g. to collect
large quantity of data, to have large scale of experiments, etc.  

Hope this provides an opportunity for our research groups to do something
which we want to but are not able to do.  J

Thank you,

Lolan 

From: Miran Lee 
Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 2:46 PM
To: Lolan Song; MSRA University Relations; Baining Guo; Ming Zhou; Xin Tong;
Xiang Cao (MSR); Frank Soong; Weiwei Xu; Shixia Liu; Eric Chang; Steve Lin;
Guobin Wu
Subject: Research project funding oppo. globally: Kinect for Windows SDK
projects for H2 FY12

Dear Colleagues,

As you know, I am working with Stewart Tansley in MRC Redmond on the Kinect
for Windows SDK program, and we are now looking to fund a number (around 4)
research projects globally in the second half of this year to showcase the
KDK's capabilities (i.e. in FY12).

MRC is looking to eventually highlight these projects as what are known
internally as 'Design Wins'. These are defined as follows:

Design-Win Criteria (all of the following)

.       Recognized Organization. The win involves a world-leading and
internationally recognized research center, department, or researcher.

.       Expert Spokesperson. At least one individual involved is a
recognized expert whose standing and caliber in a particular research field
provides important gravitas to the statement of Microsoft's value in their
research. This individual must become a public spokesperson for the design
win.

.       Scientific Relevancy. The results of the collaboration are
significant and relevant to the individual's recognized area of research.

.       Publically Referenced (note the use of past tense). The organization
approves the win as a public reference case for Microsoft, and it has been
published as such by MSR or the collaborating organization publically.

I hope that we work together with qualified professors to put really strong
proposal(s) for this opportunity, 1 year project proposals (approx. $100k).

Please provide your ideas on how to put the strong proposal(s) to win this
opportunity. With your ideas, UR will have further discussion to move
forward. Thanks.

Best Regards,

Miran Lee

Senior University Relations Manager

Microsoft Research Asia

Phone: +82-2-531-4754

Mobile: +82-10-3600-4226

 <http://research.microsoft.com/> http://research.microsoft.com

From: Stewart Tansley 
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2011 6:29 AM
To: Miran Lee; Jaime Puente; Satish Sangameswaran; John Warren
Cc: Kenji Takeda; Harold Javid
Subject: FW: Kinect for Windows SDK projects for H2 FY12

Hi everyone representing Kinect SDK/NUI in your regions!

As presented at the QBR last week, the Kinect SDK outreach program in FY12
is focusing on evangelism in the first half Q1-Q2, and moves back to a more
conventional focus (for MRC) on research projects in Q3-Q4:

http://sharepoint/sites/erweb/External Research Team Meetings/FY12 QBRs/QBR
FY12 Q1/Kinect - QBR FY12Q1 - 6oct11b.pptx
<http://sharepoint/sites/erweb/External%20Research%20Team%20Meetings/FY12%20
QBRs/QBR%20FY12%20Q1/Kinect%20-%20QBR%20FY12Q1%20-%206oct11b.pptx>  

For the upcoming research project focus, we want to find the top ~4 most
impactful "design win" type research projects we can possibly find. 

I'm suggesting these be ~$100k scale projects, potentially amplified with
matching funds (*not* agreed today) from IEB (Xbox), and suggested 1-year
duration - shorter than recent research project guidance in MRC (typically
2-years), but that's because things are moving too fast in NUI to risk
longer-term investments from MRC for the time being in my view. 

It would be great to get a head-start on sifting out the best candidates for
these projects over this current Q2, so we can make an early start on
deciding the projects ASAP in Q3 - thus hitting financial targets for FY12
overall. 

We recognize that your own region and approach may be different, but the
goals should essentially be the same - the most impactful "design win" type
Kinect SDK/NUI projects we can find!

Please consider your own approach during this quarter. 

Please let me know if you have any questions or additional suggestions. And
please keep in touch so that we do this as a "federated unit" rather than
individual silos. Many thanks everyone! 

APAC - Miran Lee miranl at microsoft.com

LATAM - Jaime Puente japuente at microsoft.com 

INDIA - Satish Sangameswaran satishsa at microsoft.com 

AUS - John Warren john.warren at microsoft.com 

EMEA - Kenji Takeda kenjitak at microsoft.com 

Stewart Tansley, PhD

Director - Natural User Interface Theme, Microsoft Research Connections

Personal <http://research.microsoft.com/~stansley>  | MRC Home
<http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/collaboration/about/default.aspx>  |
MRC Blog <http://blogs.msdn.com/msr_er>  | MSR at Facebook
<http://www.facebook.com/microsoftresearch>  | MSR at Twitter
<http://twitter.com/MSFTResearch>  | Fourth Paradigm
<http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/collaboration/fourthparadigm/default.as
px>  | Kinect <http://research.microsoft.com/kinectsdk>  SDK
<http://research.microsoft.com/kinectsdk> 

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