Nearly 100 budding game designers pulled all-nighters at NJIT for the Eleventh Annual Global Game Jam (GGJ) in what has become a much anticipated event for both design and information technology students. Organized in 2008, GGJ, an international nonprofit corporation based in California, is the world’s largest game-development event. This year, 47,000 participants from 113 countries gathered at 860 sites worldwide to create 9,000 games. The free annual marathon offers anyone over the age of 18 the chance to design video games in a 48-hour window. There were six sites in New Jersey…

Milad Mirghahari came up with his idea the way many entrepreneurs do, by trying to solve a real-world problem he faced daily. The difference in Mirghahari’s case is he was only 15 years old. Mirghahari’s family operated two Subway franchises and in his words — they were failing. The main problem — they could not find good talent. They lacked ambitious, committed employees who wanted to succeed. After peppering his mom with questions long enough, she told him, “you think you can fix it — do it." He did. He scoured through resumes, reached out to other Subway franchisees, gave himself…

Three professors joined the Department of Informatics at the Ying Wu College of Computing (YWCC) this Fall. Check out the Q&A below to learn a little more about Aritra Dasgupta, Margarita Vinnikov and Xinyue Ye, who hail from institutions across the country. Assistant Professor Aritra Dasgupta Your background:  I was born and grew up in Kolkata, the cultural capital of India. After receiving my undergraduate degree in Information Technology there, I received my M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC).   UNCC was a part of…

This year, NJIT’s College of Science and Liberal Arts has announced it will offer students a unique baccalaureate degree option in the emerging field of cyberpsychology. The new program — exploring the dynamics between modern technology and human psychology — is the first of its kind in New Jersey, and is the first academic program in the behavioral sciences to be offered at NJIT. The 120-credit degree option, now available for enrollment through the college’s Science, Technology and Society B.S. degree program, involves a combination of traditional coursework in psychology, and study…

More than 250 college students recently descended on NJIT for a 24-hour hackathon. The event challenged students to develop a software solution addressing some interesting applications of their choice, in a fast-paced, collaborative, yet competitive environment lasting a mere 24 hours. The hackathon, organized by the NJIT student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and Major League Hacking, attracted students from 17 colleges and universities including Arizona State University, Princeton and Villanova. ACM Public Relations Officer Migle Surblyte said…

At NJIT, Craig Gotsman is best known as dean of Ying Wu College of Computing. Within the scientific community, he is better known as the inventor of a number of cutting-edge software technologies for manipulating 3D geometric data, enabling their use in a variety of applications. Many of these technologies have been patented and commercialized, some through startup companies, which Gotsman founded — spinoffs of his academic research. In recognition of these achievements, Gotsman has been named a Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Inventors (NAI) for 2018. Election to NAI Fellow status is…

A startup company co-founded by a NJIT Ying Wu College of Computing (YWCC) professor recently received a substantial investment from a startup foundry supported by industry giants including Microsoft and AT&T. Duality Technologies, launched in 2016 by Associate Professor Kurt Rohloff and four partners, develops an innovative cryptographic technology called “homomorphic encryption” to enable organizations to encrypt their data so that computations may be performed on the data in its encrypted form. Keeping the data encrypted provides an extra layer of protection for companies,…

Housed within the School of Art + Design and Ying Wu College of Computing (YWCC), NJIT’s game development program blends digital design and information technology curriculums to offer students access to faculty and resources that cross disciplinary boundaries and cultivate innovation and creativity. Here, Glenn Goldman, founding director of the School of Art + Design, discusses the uniqueness of the university’s multidisciplinary program, and what kind of students fit the mold — and explains why an assemblage of disciplines will continue to unite the world of game…

New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has reached out to giants in the field of cryptography nearly 7,000 miles away to advance blockchain, an evolving digital security technology designed to enable enterprises both large and small to expand transactions across borders, supply chains and diverse stakeholder groups. In a recently announced partnership, NJIT’s Ying Wu College of Computing has joined forces with JD.com, China’s largest retailer, and the Institute of Software at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISCAS) to pursue fundamental improvements in consensus protocols, privacy…

Both on land and in space, Earth’s technology-centered civilization is increasingly vulnerable to the powerful bursts of electromagnetic radiation, energetic charged particles and magnetized plasma known as space weather. As the complexity of engineered systems increases, as new technologies are invented and deployed, and as humans venture ever further beyond Earth’s surface, both human-built systems and humans themselves become more susceptible to the effects of the planet’s space environment. It is with these vulnerabilities in mind – and in response to urgent calls from government…