Microsoft Showcases Higher Education Initiatives REDMOND, Wash. 
At the third annual Microsoft Research Faculty Summit, company Chairman Bill Gates announced the formation of the Trustworthy Computing Academic Advisory Board. Speaking to 325 faculty researchers from institutions worldwide, Gates stressed the importance of finding innovative ways to foster a safer, more private and more reliable computing experience. The new board will focus on technical and policy issues as they relate to secure computing, according to Microsoft officials.
The board is being created to formalize a process for Microsoft to receive critical feedback on product and policy issues around privacy, security and reliability from leading academic security research scientists worldwide, each with a significant track record in his or her field of expertise.
"Collaboration between industry and academia is crucial to deliver on our shared vision for the future of technology and education," Gates said. "Microsoft remains committed to deepening its relationship with academia, because only by working together can we create the next generation of computing technology."
Microsoft created the annual faculty summit to provide a research forum for the exchange of information and ideas. Academics  present their latest research projects and findings during breakout sessions and view demonstrations from Microsoft that highlight the company's current research and products in development.
Microsoft makes its source code accessible to a variety of customers, partners, researchers, governments and academicians through the Shared Source Initiative. The initiative allows Microsoft to increase outreach to the academic and research community via expanded source access, i.e., the ability to modify and distribute code for research purposes. To date, more than 100 universities have signed up for Microsoft source access, and professors, researchers and students have accounted for more than 20 percent of the 125,000 downloads of Windows CE .NET and Windows CE 3.0 shared source code.
Gates also unveiled a Microsoft research project called the Conference Experience Project (ConferenceXP), which is a suite of research technologies designed to create highly interactive distance classrooms.
Institutions including Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rice University, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Texas and the University of Washington have been working with Microsoft to design, build and test these technologies in classroom settings.  

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