Today’s students live at a time when technology has the potential to make significant changes in the world. Huge leaps in computing power, the shift to a client plus cloud platform, the emergence of more natural user interfaces, the ability to manipulate and understand terabytes of data – all are creating a world where college graduates will have remarkable capabilities at their fingertips. Those capabilities will create opportunities to tackle some of the planet’s toughest challenges, from environmental change, to growing the global economy, to improving healthcare and education.

This week Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, visits four college campuses to talk with students about how the new capabilities in computing will help solve these complex issues. At Cornell, Harvard, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Washington, Mundie will show the leading-edge work taking place at Microsoft.

During his talks, Mundie will demonstrate work from the Computational Science Group out of Microsoft Research Cambridge (U.K.). That group has created a state-of-the-art global carbon-climate model that allows scientists to study forests in ways not previously possible. With the carbon model, and another model created by Microsoft researchers that shows how populations of trees actually grow, scientists can study how deforestation in the Amazon basin can affect forests worldwide.

Mundie also will discuss the kinds of computers students will soon be using – machines that will respond to gestures through new natural user interfaces; deploy the power of new microprocessors; migrate data to the cloud; and use live data to drive new simulations and visualizations. He’ll center on an environmental theme to show what it might be like to be a research scientist working on zero carbon energy in the future using new interactions with data and computers to increase insight.

Most importantly, Mundie will ask students to think big – to think across disciplines from computer science to ecology to demography – and to be willing to accept new tests and opportunities. “We have vast challenges facing the world today – dangerous climate change, diseases such as cancer and diabetes, and the need for new approaches in agriculture,” he says. “But the big changes we’re seeing in technology can help us meet those challenges.”

Return to this site for videos and slide shows from Mundie’s tour, as well as observations from current Microsoft employees who attended the universities where Mundie is speaking. Plus, see a slideshow illustrating the development of the demonstrations being given by Mundie on the tour.