With the growth of the internet and the digital age, information science is becoming immensely important, and it’s led to some really wonderful advancements in computation and communication over the last few years. And so, in the future, I think that some of the most powerful developments are going to come from combining information science with other disciplines. Disciplines like mathematics, physics, biology and social sciences.

And that’s why I feel it’s so fantastic to be part of this institute, which is really on the cutting edge of interdisciplinary information science research.

I think that Prof. Andrew Yao is a really brilliant man, and he's crafted a really brilliant environment here for research, and for teaching.

So, I'd like to welcome you all here, and I'd like to say a few words to our new undergraduates.

I believe you’re all very lucky, because you’re in one of the best places in the world to learn information science, and the related disciplines. And I think you’re going to find the things you learn very interesting, and also very useful.

So, in Theoretical computer science you’re going to learn how to design and study algorithms. And this is extremely useful for solving real world problems. And you’re also going to learn about fascinating subjects like computational complexity and communication complexity. These subjects allow us to quantify how hard problems are to solve, and that’s a very useful thing to be able to do.

You’re also going to be learning network science; this is one of my favorite areas. I think it’s really interesting, and it’s also really useful. I mean, with the growth of the internet, networks are playing a larger and larger part in our lives, and I think it’s really important to understand their structure. So when you study network science your going to learn about many complex structures like computer networks, wireless networks, social networks and financial networks. You’re going to learn how individuals within these networks interact, and how we can develop algorithms which operate on these networks.

You’re also going to be learning lots of interesting things about physics, like quantum computing and quantum communication. And I think that these subjects are really exciting, and they are going to lead to some very powerful technologies in the coming years.