Kay Ousterhout recently won the Google Ph.d. Fellowship. This is one of the highest honors a CS grad student can win. It is extremely selective, with only a small number universities invited to submit two nominees each. Kay is a 5th year student of Prof. Sylvia Ratnasamy. The Google Phd Fellowship was created in 2009 to recognize and support outstanding graduate students doing exceptional work in Computer Science (CS) and related disciplines.

Venture capital firm Pejman Mar Ventures has created a new competition for UC Berkeley entrepreneurs who demonstrate passion and dedication to making their vision a reality. They are offering $250,000 to back up a startup founded by a Berkeley student, faculty member or alum in exchange for 10 percent of the company. In the past 18 months they have funded 7 companies in which the founders were from Stanford, MIT and Carnegie Mellon. Applicants have until Oct. 1 to apply and a winner will be chosen by Oct. 30.

An article featured in Bloomberg Business titled “Five of the Best Computer Science Classes in the U.S” has named EECS CS 61A in the top 5. The number of college graduates who got degrees in computer science in 2011 was 2,000% higher than it was in 1970 according to the U.S. Dept. of Education. This course is taught by Asst. Teaching Prof. John De Nero. A notable alumni of this program is Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, ’86.