CMS EE Partners Program

The CMS-EE Partners Program provides opportunities for startups and companies to meaningfully engage with students, connect with research, and support educational and outreach efforts. Whether your company already has strong ties with Caltech or is just getting to know us, the program is a great way to strengthen and broaden those relationships. We also welcome alums and individuals into the program.

Engage Students

Caltech students are a high-achieving and creative bunch. While Caltech is small (about 2200 students total, across campus), our students are extraordinary. They are selected for their unbridled sense of curiosity in science, engineering and technology, as well as their remarkable aptitude for academic excellence. 99% placed in the top tenth of their high school graduating class. We are lucky to have about half of the undergraduates majoring or minoring in our department. Recently, we had over 300 students in our graduate level machine learning course! About two thirds of undergraduates go on to industry jobs, and almost all of our graduate students do at least one internship.

In order to deepen connections between the CMS-EE Partners Program members and our students, we host several events, tech talks, and send out sponsorship opportunities for student clubs, workshops, and course projects. For example, in October, the CMS-EE Partners Program hosts an afternoon demo fair, Techfest, providing our member startups and companies with a chance to show off their latest technologies in an intimate setting prior to the Caltech Fall Career Fair. Additionally, in the past, member companies have given tech talks, guest lectures in courses, mentored projects, provided technical interview workshops, and sponsored many student clubs, including Hacktech, the Caltech Robotics Team, and the ACM Programming Competition.

Connect with Research

CMS-EE Partners Program members are welcomed wholeheartedly into the research ecosystem of CMS and EE. We welcome our CMS-EE Partners Program members to interact directly with our faculty, students, and postdocs by participating in our two flagship events, in October Techfest and the Meeting of the Minds in May. Additionally, members are welcome to attend workshops and seminars in the department.

Relationships built through these interactions have spurred more in-depth research collaborations at the faculty and graduate student level. Our multidisciplinary research centers such as CAST (the Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies) and DOLCIT (Decision, Optimization, and Learning at the California Institute of Technology), present a strong opportunity for engagement for our CMS-EE Partners Program members. These centers serve as a nexus of creative collaborative effort that fuel many of the cutting-edge initiatives at Caltech.

Support Educational and Outreach Efforts

Part of the CMS-EE Partners Program membership fee is directed towards supporting educational and outreach efforts, ranging from hackathons and programming competitions to K-12 outreach events and diversity initiatives. Additionally opportunities to further engage with these efforts through participation and sponsorships are open to members throughout the year. Past participation has included partner engineers acting as mock technical interviewers and mentoring women undergraduates as well as sponsoring students attending conferences such as Grace Hopper.

Member Benefits

Members of the CMS-EE Partners Program will be actively engaged with students and faculty in the department throughout the year. To enable and encourage such engagement, the CMS-EE Partners Program includes the following benefits and opportunities:

Corporate Members

• Host a booth at
• Attend Techfest
• Attend Meeting of the Minds
• Give a featured Tech Talk
• Host a "Dinner for Eight" to network with students and postdocs
• Attend workshops and seminars
• Receive announcements regarding sponsorship and involvement opportunities for a wide variety of activities such as workshops, student clubs and hackathons, research collaborations, and course projects

Individual Members

The CMS-EE Department is happy to welcome alumni and other individuals to the CMS-EE Partners Program. Individual members are invited to attend departmental events such as seminars, Techfest, and Meeting of the Minds. The CMS-EE Partners Program is a great way for alumni to stay engaged, or re-engage, with the CMS and EE Departments.

Become a Member

Membership in the CMS-EE Partners Program by startups and companies is based upon a donation that is used to support the opportunities described above as well as student activities and local outreach programs. The annual fee for startups and companies is variable depending on the size of the company and level of engagement with the program. Startups and companies interested in joining the CMS-EE Partners Program should contact us for more information at cmspartners-info@caltech.edu.

Individuals who are interested in becoming CMS-EE Partners Program members (and attending CMS-EE Partners Program events) are encouraged to make a donation to the department and should contact us at cmspartners-info@caltech.edu