Beyond the Classroom : Computer Systems – Workhorses of the Digital Era

Modern day life is fueled by computers, which are all around us – in smartphones, laptops, even our cars. There is still a larger army of servers that are deployed by Googles and Facebooks of the world to power the everyday services that we have come to rely on – for finding information, communicating with the world among myriad other things. This talk will provide an overview of the evolution of modern computer systems, go behind the scenes of how they work and are used to power Internet based services. We will briefly also touch upon the metrics that are important for design of these machines, especially in the era of climate change.