Prof. Yao from Tsinghua University, the only Chinese who won Turing Award, which is the highest honor in computer science, widely regarded as the Nobel Prize of computing, claimed on November 13 that information technology will have many interactions with other disciplines in the 21st century and he suggested to build new computer science college with biology department, physITCS department and so on in order to obtain advantages in the future information technology competition.
During the “Information and Innovation Academic Forum” under Beijing Forum for 2008 Nobel Laureates, Prof. Yao said that information technology has a very large basic science database, which interacts and is used by different disciplines and it is possible to form innovation both in basis and technology. Therefore, he suggested that Chinese government and the Chinese Academy of Science build brand-new computer science college with biology department, physITCS department, chemistry department and so on.
“It requires courage and determination”, he said. It is difficult to build a computer science college with many disciplines as branches in any university all over the world. However, the development of modern science is exciting and he believes that China may seize the opportunity and cultivate talents who are familiar with both computer science and biology or other disciplines to obtain advantage in future competition.
Speaking of cultivating talents, Prof. Yao, who got two Ph.D. degrees in US and is famous for his “Yao Class” in Tsinghua University, said we need to carry out individualized cultivating in order to train “top computer science elite”. In order to succeed, they need interest, training and luckiness as fundamental conditions.
As for economic crisis, Prof. Yao said no great impact has taken place in his own research field and what we can foresee is we will soon learn about the orientation of development in the following decades.
