The Computing Community Consortium is interested in stimulating the development of new research visions and challenges in computing research. Recently, the CCC has begun collaborating with conferences in computer science and sponsoring “crazy-idea” sessions with travel awards for the most exciting submissions. One such example is the Fun Ideas and Thoughts (FIT) session at the PLDI (Programming Languages Design and Implementation) conference, held on June 8, 2010 in Toronto, Canada.

In collaboration with the PLDI organizing commitee, the CCC is happy to announce the winners of the FIT session:

1) Outfoxing the Mammoths, by Marek Olszewski and Saman Amarasinghe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology;

2) Resource-Based Programming in Plaid, by Jonathan Aldrich, Carnegie Mellon University; and

3) Dualities in Programming Languages, by Martin Hirzel and Priya Nagpurkar.

These three were selected based on an online poll of registered participants of PLDI. Olszewski, Aldrich, and Hirzel will each receive travel grants. Their presentations and papers can be found on the FIT Web page.

Many thanks to the PLDI community! And please check out the presentations and comment about them below.

(Contributed by Frans Kaashoek, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)