History of the INI
2011
April: The INI hosts a panel of business leaders at the Women and the Economy Forum.
The INI announces the launch of a new executive master's program in information assurance that will begin in the fall of 2012.
2010
February: Lockheed Martin awards five fellowships to INI students.
April 17: The INI 20th Anniversary Celebration takes place over Spring Carnival Weekend.
May: The second EWF INI fellow, Tyelisa Shields, graduates and takes a position at Hewlett-Packard as a system qualification engineer.
July 12-23: The eighth edition of the Information Assurance Capacity Building Program takes place.
September 24: WINI hosts visiting CIT alumna, Dr. Erin Fitzgerald, for an event to kickoff the new 'computer engineer' Barbie by Mattel. Dr. Fitzgerald, who had a hand in the new doll's design, led a discussion with fifty students, faculty and staff on the topic of women in technology careers.
October: Student Krystal Ying is the third recipient of the EWF INI Fellowship.
Several INI students compete on CMU's Capture the Flag team.
2009
The staff begins plans to mark the 20th anniversary of the INI.
The INI hosts regional alumni events in Washington, D.C., Silicon Valley and Seattle during spring semester.
Carnegie Mellon is re-designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education and designated for the first time as a Center for Academic Excellence in Research.
The INI website and CarnegieCyberAcademy.com win 2009 Silver Communicator Awards.
April: The INI announces a cyber forensics and incident response track option for Pittsburgh MSIN and Pittsburgh MSISTM students, and an Integrated Master's option for ECE and CS undergraduates at Carnegie Mellon.
May 14-17: The INI hosts the first-ever global diploma ceremony in Pittsburgh that includes graduates from our programs in Athens, Kobe, Aveiro and Lisbon.
June 5: A team of INI students in the Kobe MSIT-IS program win the incident-handling contest at Shirahama Cyber Crime Symposium.
July 13-24: CyLab and the INI hold the seventh offering of the Information Assurance Capacity Building Program.
2008
Spring: Students along with staff advisors organize GOINI (Graduate Organization@INI), a student-run organization to nurture leadership and social networking skills among students.
May: Professor Nicolas Christin is promoted to Associate Director of the INI. In July he moves to Pittsburgh from Japan where he had been positioned since 2005 as an INI faculty member and faculty advisor for the Kobe MSIT-IS program.
June: The INI celebrates the fifth anniversary of its Athens Master of Science in Information Networking program (Athens MSIN). An alumni reception was held at the Arion Resort and Spa in Athens, Greece, on June 12, 2008, the day after the Athens MSIN graduation ceremony.
The INI launches bi-coastal Pittsburgh-Silicon Valley MSIT programs in Mobility, Information Security and Software Management. The first class arrives in August.
August: The INI hosts the first global orientation, Destination 2008, and convenes graduate students from all six global locations. International students who accepted the invitation to attend participated in the two-day orientation with their Pittsburgh classmates and attended classes with them for a week.
December: The first class graduates from the programs in Portugal, the Aveiro MSIN and Lisbon MSIT-IS.
December: The first EWF INI fellow, Amy Rambhia, graduates and joins Microsoft as a project manager in the Networking Group.
2007
The INI launches two graduate degree programs in Portugal to begin in fall 2007.
The INI renovates the lower level of the INI building to add another Distributed Education Center (DEC). The space includes distributed education equipment, lab space, a classroom and conference room, as well as reception area, kitchen and restrooms.
March: The INI graduates its first class of students from the Kobe MSIT-IS program.
October: The INI and CyLab celebrate the official launch of Carnegie Cadets: The MySecureCyberspace Game. Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett attends the kickoff event at a local elementary school.
December: The INI announces new professional graduate degree programs in information technology (INI Pittsburgh-Silicon Valley Master of Science in Information Technology (MSIT) programs) that will give students the experience of two locations: the rich academic setting at Carnegie Mellon's main campus in Pittsburgh and the unique professional exposure at Carnegie Mellon's Silicon Valley campus.
2006
April: The INI and Carnegie Mellon CyLab partner with Alta Associates to create the Executive Women's Forum INI Fellowship.
June: The INI graduates its third class of students from the Athens MSIN program.
The INI reports 100 percent career placement rate for 2006 graduates.
2005
April: The INI celebrates its 15-year anniversary.
April: Through a grant from the National Science Foundation, the INI and CyLab launch www.MySecureCyberspace.com, which includes a prototype of the online MySecureCyberspace game.
Dena Haritos Tsamitis and faculty Chenxi Wang found the student-run organization Women@INI (WINI).
Fall: The M.S. in Information Technology - Information Security (MSIT-IS) program is created and offered in Kobe, Japan.
2004
April: The INI graduates its first Athens MSIN class of 19 students in Athens, Greece. This is the first Carnegie Mellon graduation ceremony on foreign soil.
July: Dena Haritos Tsamitis becomes director of the INI when Pradeep K. Khosla is appointed dean of the College of Engineering (CIT).
The INI becomes the educational partner of Carnegie Mellon's newly created CyLab Research Initiative and begins development of MySecureCyberspace®.
2003
The INI creates the M.S. in Information Security Technology & Management (MSISTM) program in response to growing concerns in the U.S. about cybersecurity.
2002
July: The INI moves back to 4616 Henry St., occupying two floors. The building is made wireless; students, working in shared offices and clusters, are provided with Dell computers.
August: The INI, in collaboration with Athens Information Technology (AIT), offers the MSIN degree in Athens, Greece. The program becomes Carnegie Mellon's first international degree program. Core courses are taught via real-time video teleconferencing.
Dena Haritos Tsamitis, who was involved in the planning and design of the Athens MSIN program, is hired as Associate Director of the INI.
2001
Carnegie Mellon is designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education by the National Security Agency.
The first INI students are awarded the NSF Scholarships for Service.
2000
Wireless Andrew Phase II is completed.
Pradeep K. Khosla becomes the fifth director of the INI. The INI, previously a university initiative, becomes a part of the College of Engineering (CIT).
October: The INI holds its first reunion of 10 years.
1999
The INI conducts research into future markets for packet switched data networks for Bell Atlantic Mobile Systems.
The INI conducts research for ABB, Zurich to develop wireless infrastructure for the power industry.
1998
The INI receives an equipment grant from Lucent for Wireless Andrew Phase II, the 802.11 system. Implementation begins.
1997
April: The INI signs a contract with Caterpillar, the biggest INI contract to date. The contract involves significant work in mobile communications and includes INI students and INI alumni pursuing PhD degrees in CS and ECE.
July: In partnership with CMU Computing Services, the INI completes and makes operational campus-wide Wireless Andrew Phase I, the 900 MHz system. The system is the first campus-wide wireless network in the world.
1994
The Bellcore contract ends, having provided startup funds and support for research and scholarships. The INI becomes an independent program with a focus on student admissions and research and boosts recruitment efforts around the world for the MSIN program.
The INI begins the Netbill research project on electronic commerce.
In the nineties, the INI was involved in some path breaking research projects, including the Coda file system, patented work on image compression, fiber-to-the-home, mobile Internet protocol, and work on the socially isolating impacts of the Internet.
1993
The INI receives a $500K government grant to start the Wireless Research Initiative, later known as Wireless Andrew. The initiative develops a campus-wide research structure and gains visibility for the INI.
1992
January: The INI moves to Hamburg Hall. The students work in open clusters equipped with DEC Alpha workstations.
Spring: The Carnegie Mellon Curriculum Review Committee redesigns the MSIN program to introduce more flexibility.
INI students work on an electronic billing system, a project that later becomes NetBill.
1990
August: The second MSIN class enters the INI graduate program. The INI moves off campus to a floor of 4616 Henry St. The new offices are equipped with Steve Job's NeXT workstations.
October: The first MSIN class graduates.
The first MSIN student project, on electronic publishing, is cited as the most comprehensive study of the subject that had been published up to that time.
1989
April - August: The Information Networking Institute is founded by Marvin Sirbu. Alex Hills becomes the first director. A contract is signed with Bellcore calling for a master's-level program in information networking.
August: The first MSIN class is housed in the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). Students use Vax 2100 personal workstations with .25 MIPs processor, 16 MB RAM running Digital Ultrix.
October: The first ATI (Bellcore executive education program) class enters the INI.
A four-month mid-career program for employees of Bellcore begins, called Advanced Technology Innovation (ATI), as well as a one-month program for employees of Digital Equipment Corporation. ATI runs until 1994, graduating 10 classes of up to 40 students each.
1988
July: Bellcore sends a Request for Proposal (RFP) out to a dozen universities.