Yesterday the Tribute to Honor Jim Gray was held at the University of California at Berkeley. We all miss Jim deeply so it really is a tough topic. But it was great to get together with literally 100s of Jim’s friends and share stories and talk about some of his accomplishments, his contributions to the field, and his contributions to each of us. Jim is amazing across all three dimensions but what is most remarkable is the profound way he helped others achieve more throughout the industry. We’re all better engineers, researchers, and human beings for having been lucky enough to have known and worked with Jim.

Also announced yesterday was the creation of the Jim Gray Chair at Cal Berkeley. Bill Gates Eric Schmidt, Marc Benioff, and Mike Stonebraker each donated $250,000 which were matched by a $1,000,000 from the Hewlett Foundation.

Seattle PI coverage: Gathering in Berkeley, Calif., today to honor legendary scientist, Microsoft researcher Jim Gray.

The morning, general session agenda:

• Welcome – Shankar Sastry

• Opening Remarks – Joseph Hellerstein

• A Tribute, Not a Memorial: Understanding Ambiguous Loss – Pauline Boss

• The Amateur Search – Michael Olson

• Jim Gray at Berkeley – Michael Harrison

• Knowledge and Wisdom – Pat Helland

• Why Did Jim Gray Win the Turing Award? – Michael Stonebraker

• Jim Gray Chair – Stuart Russell

• 500 Special Relationships: Jim as a Mentor to Faculty and Students – Ed Lazowska

• Jim Gray: His Contributions to Industry – David Vaskevitch

• A “Gap Bridger” – Richard Rashid

• Thanks to the U.S. Coast Guard – Paula Hawthorn

The afternoon, technical session agenda:

· Welcome – Shankar Sastry

· Opening Remarks – Joseph Hellerstein

· A Tribute, Not a Memorial: Understanding Ambiguous Loss – Pauline Boss

· The Amateur Search – Michael Olson

· Jim Gray at Berkeley – Michael Harrison

· Knowledge and Wisdom – Pat Helland

· Why Did Jim Gray Win the Turing Award? – Michael Stonebraker

· Jim Gray Chair – Stuart Russell

· 500 Special Relationships: Jim as a Mentor to Faculty and Students – Ed Lazowska

· Jim Gray: His Contributions to Industry – David Vaskevitch

· A “Gap Bridger” – Richard Rashid

· Thanks to the U.S. Coast Guard – Paula Hawthorn

The event was video recorded and streamed via http://webcast.berkeley.edu/.

Update: the video will be at: Tribute to Honor Jim Gray – General Session (thanks to George Spix for sending my way).

Second Update: A good article by John Markoff of the NY Times: A Tribute to Jim Gray: Sometimes Nice Guys Do Finish First.

–jrh

James Hamilton, Windows Live Platform Services
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