No one doubts that we have only scratched the surface of what is possible with the Web. The day is coming fast where the Web will become almost a virtual mind reader. Your intent, interests, and needs will be instantly perceived and the information you really want will be delivered—whether you asked for it directly or not—based on a deep understanding of the meanings of words in your query, knowledge of your patterns and preferences, what others have done before you, your location, and more.

Microsoft is one of the world’s major players in creating the future of the Web—and growing fast in influence behind its Bing search engine and decades of research into data mining, semantic search, information retrieval, and human-computer interfaces. Please join us for an evening with Microsoft’s online services division president Qi Lu, the chief force behind Bing, online advertising, and other Internet initiatives, and the shepherd of the company’s “quest to enable people everywhere to gain knowledge and creativity from the Web by computationally understanding user intent and matching that with published content, advertising offerings, and software services.”

Where is the Web heading, and how will Microsoft help shape it?  How will search itself be transformed to align to this new Web? In this rare appearance, Dr. Lu will lay out some specifics behind Microsoft’s vision to “empower people with knowledge.” He will then sit down with Xconomy Boston’s Editor Greg Huang (himself a Ph.D. in computer science) and field questions from you—the users and shapers of the future of the Web.

Schedule:
Doors open/registration: 5:30
Event: 6:15-7:15 pm, with reception to follow

About Qi Lu
As president of Microsoft's Online Services Division (OSD), Dr. Qi Lu leads Microsoft’s online advertising efforts, across search (Bing), portal (MSN), mobile, and the broader advertising platforms and services.  In addition, he oversees the Global Foundation Services organization, which is Microsoft’s global infrastructure, networking, and data center operations.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Dr. Lu spent 10 years as a Yahoo! senior executive for the company's Search and Advertising Technology Group. Before joining Yahoo!, Dr. Lu worked as a research staff member at IBM's Almaden Research Center and Carnegie Mellon University and was a faculty member at Fudan University in China.

He received his bachelor of science and master of science in computer science from Fudan University and his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Lu holds 20 U.S. patents.

hashtag: #QiAtNERD

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