CSLI and Media X (Keith Devlin)

Keith Devlin is the Executive Director of CSLI, the Center for the Study of Language and Information, which hosts the Reuters Digital Vision Program. In addition to his role at CSLI and Media X (where he's also the Executive Director), Keith is NPR's Math Guy.

Keith walked us through the charter of CSLI, its formation in 1983 as a joint venture between Stanford, SRI, and Xerox PARC (funded mostly by a $23M grant from RAND's System Development Foundation). As info tech expanded beyond text and language, the study of user experience elements encompassed a broader research agenda. CSLI continued to be the containing umbrella, until 2001, when Media X was formed, and CSLI returned to its original core focus.

Media X sounds like an innovative academic structure: really just a network of faculty and departments; a budget line item without permanent faculty or building. This flexibility enables Media X to respond quickly to requests from its member companies (and industrial liaison is largely its raison d' etre). Major partners (like IBM, Nokia, Cisco, etc) pay $300K/yr with a minimum 3 year commit to help set the research directions for Media X. Minor members (SAP, Microsoft Research, Mattel, GlaxoSmithKline, Steelcase, Fisher Price, Philips, etc) pay $50K/year and have access to all of the research generated. Since Stanford retains the rights to the research, companies are not subject to the overhead (62%) typically tacked on by the university to contract amounts. Media X is focused on next generation technology for:

• Commerce
  
• Learning
  
• Entertainment
  

The projects tend to be quick turn-around, focusing on ideas that are 6 to 12 months away from commercialization.