{"id":5975,"date":"2016-04-26T09:00:34","date_gmt":"2016-04-26T16:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/msr_er\/?p=5975"},"modified":"2022-03-17T13:21:15","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T20:21:15","slug":"opening-the-door-to-innovation-winners-of-the-first-microsoft-open-source-challenge-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/blog\/opening-the-door-to-innovation-winners-of-the-first-microsoft-open-source-challenge-announced\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening the door to innovation: winners of the first Microsoft Open Source Challenge announced"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Open<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

By <\/em>Judith Bishop<\/em> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, Director of Computer Science, Microsoft Research<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A thriving research and development ecosystem relies on connecting innovators with the tools for innovation. When we launched the Microsoft Open Source Challenge (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> earlier this year, that\u2019s just what we had in mind: Put open source code and data into the hands of students. Give them free rein, just a few rules, a little incentive, and then watch them build with, and on top of Microsoft’s open source research software and tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Akond<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re excited to announce that Akond Rahman (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, a second-year student in the computer science doctoral program at North Carolina State University, has won the Grand Prize in the first Microsoft Open Source Challenge. In his winning submission, Akond makes use of the Send2Vec (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, which are the predictors and trained model files of DSSM (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> (deep structured semantic model or deep semantic similarity model) to quantify the semantic similarity of software projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea for the project, \u201cQuantifying Semantic Similarity of Software Projects Using Deep Semantic Similarity Model,\u201d had been percolating in the software developer\u2019s mind. \u201cSmall teams of engineers working in large corporations [and institutions] are constantly having to start from scratch\u2014they can\u2019t get anything useful out of the software repositories. If I could use a deep learning neural network like DSSM to do the semantic search and arrange and score the tokens, teams would be able find and reuse code that other teams had already created.\u201d When a colleague at North Carolina State University brought the Open Source Challenge to Akond\u2019s attention, he quickly found the tools and got to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jianfeng Gao, Principal Researcher at Microsoft, was asked by the Open Source Challenge committee to review submissions that made use of DSSM and related tools. When he read Akond\u2019s submission, he knew immediately that it was exceptional: \u201cThis was such a surprising, innovative use of the [DSSM] tool. It had never occurred to me to apply it this way. This report was written by someone whose area of study isn\u2019t related to DSSM or the theory it involves\u2014natural language processing, AI\u2014but who clearly understands how a tool like DSSM works. This student saw a way to make the tool serve his purposes, which were completely focused on the user. I think it\u2019s really something special.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOpen source is good for everyone\u2014students, researchers, companies\u2014because it allows us to build on the collective learning of the community.\u201d Akond Rahman, Microsoft Open Source Challenge Grand Prize winner<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A veteran of the CS research world, Jianfeng is excited by the results of Open Source for Academics (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, which sponsored the challenge. He feels events like the challenge \u201chave brought attention to the availability of our open source tools and software. We\u2019ve seen an important change in the culture. Open source helps create a community for the company, students, and researchers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On April 25, in addition to the Open Source Challenge grand prize-winner, we announced the winners of three second prizes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n