About Pulse

On behalf of the Pulse 2021 Discoveries Team, we invite you to join our tenth annual conference to celebrate the latest innovation within Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.


Our annual conference brings together hundreds of students and several corporate sponsors for a week-long celebration of technology through workshops, tech talks from cutting-edge technologists, a hardware competition, a software competition and a day-long celebration of women in technology.


Below are some highlights from previous conferences. This year, Pulse will be completely virtual, allowing students to connect with each other and industry leaders via Zoom.

  • All
  • Tech Talks
  • Competitions
  • Women In Tech
For the Pulse 2019 keynote address, we had the pleasure of hosting the CEO of Texas Instruments, Rich Templeton! Rich talked about the future of semiconductor technologies, explaining the biggest challenges facing the new era of chip design.
For the Pulse 2019 Women in Tech Keynote, we hosted Laura Butler, the VP of OneNote at Microsoft! She discussed her impressive career, innovation at Microsoft, and challenges she has faced as a women and leader in a large tech company.
During the Pulse 2020 Women in Tech day, we held round table discussions, giving students a chance to ask questions and converse with women in the tech industry.
Every year, we host a software competition where students can compete in beginner and advanced coding challenges to win impressive prizes. Previous prizes have included headphones, drones, and VR headsets!
In the Pulse hardware competition, teams work together to create hardware-software prototypes and demo to judges. Past prizes have included Nintendo Switches and portable speakers! This year, the hardware competition will not be part of Pulse, but it will be sure to make a comeback in the upcoming years!
Every year, our keynote is accompanied by swag distribution and free food! Look out for information about where you can receieve swag this year!

Events

Spotlight Presentation, Danny Gardner, CEO of Mesh++

Monday, February 1st, 2-3pm CST Zoom Link

Lightning Talks

Monday, February 1st, 5-6:30pm CST Zoom Link

HKN Cracking the Hardware Interview Workshop

Monday, February 1st, 8-9pm CST Zoom Link

WIT Day Lightning Talks

Tuesday, February 2nd, 11am-12:30pm CST Zoom Link

WIT Day Lean In

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2-3pm CST Zoom Link

WIT Day Women in Academia Event

Tuesday, February 2nd, 4-5pm CST Zoom Link

WIT Day Keynote, Catarina Macedo, Senior Product Manager at Riot Games - Wild Rift

Tuesday, February 2nd, 5-6pm CST Zoom Link

WIT Day Networking

Tuesday, February 2nd, 6-7pm CST Zoom Link

Texas Instruments Coffee Chat

Wednesday, February 3rd, 9-10am CST Zoom Link

Conference Keynote, David Yang, Founder of Fullstack Academy

Wednesday, February 3rd, 5-6:30pm CST Zoom Link

Future of Tech Talks

Thursday, February 4th, 4-5:30pm CST Zoom Link

Spotlight Presentation, Chris Brown, CPO of Relativity

Thursday, February 4th, 6-7pm CST Zoom Link

SHPE Behavioral Interview Workshop

Thursday, February 4th, 7-8pm CST Zoom Link

Spotlight Presentation, Rick Spencer

Friday, February 5th, 2-3pm CST Zoom Link

Software Competition

Friday, February 5th, 6-8pm CST Zoom Link

Our Team

Meet the executive board that makes Pulse possible!

Kelly Dunleavy

Co-Director

Fawaz Tirmizi

Co-Director

Ribhav Jain

Marketing Director

Rishab Sriramoju

Corporate & Networking
Co-Director

Tejas Satpalkar

Corporate & Networking
Co-Director

Nora Dunleavy

Media & Design Director

Savera Zulfiqar

Women In Tech Director

Abhi Kamboj

Competitions Co-Director

Nikhil Nakka

Competitions Co-Director

Rohan Sreerama

Secretary & Treasurer

Abishek Venkit

Website Director

Corporate Sponsors