The White House just wrapped up their National Strategic Computing Initiative Workshop (NSCI). The purpose of the workshop was to maximize the impact and inform long term planning for the NSCI, by creating new partnerships between academia and industry. Tom Kalil, Deputy Director for Policy for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, laid out the newly released nanotechnology-inspired Grand Challenge and asked the audience: What are the main actions that we need to develop in order to carry out the president’s five main actions laid out in the NSCI? The three themes from the workshop were: Convergence of data-intensive and numerically intensive computing Hardware technology for future HPC systems Improving productivity in […]

On October 20, as part of the rollout of the National Strategic Computing Initiative, the White House announced their nanotechnology-inspired grand challenge to develop transformational computing capabilities by combining innovations in multiple scientific disciplines. Create a new type of computer that can proactively interpret and learn from data, solve unfamiliar problems using what it has learned, and operate with the energy efficiency of the human brain. In support of this rollout, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) has released a statement of support as well as a whitepaper on the Opportunities and Challenges for Next Generation Computing. This whitepaper articulates some opportunities and challenges for dramatic performance improvements of both personal to national […]

The Kairos Society, a San Francisco-based international organization that supports the development of entrepreneurs has published its fourth annual list of Kairos 50; a list of 50 emerging global startups, with at least one founder under the age of 25. The list of 50 finalists was chosen from 550 nominations and one winner could get $50,000 from Ev Williams, one of Twitter’s co-founders. Some computing-related highlights of the finalists include: Adjuvo Motion, a Netherlands-based, health-tech company that offers monitoring systems and diagnostic tools for outpatient monitoring and a brace that can help patients undergoing therapy. Ava, a company that has developed an app that transcribes group conversations in real time to […]

The Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2014 mandated a report to Congress on the status of a Cybersecurity Research Plan, specifically focusing on software security. The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is in a unique position to provide input from the computer science research community to the report before it is finalized. There is a hope that this report will influence decisions about the areas on which to focus and make future research funding available through different federal agencies. In order to prepare this feedback, we have formed an editorial team consisting of Kevin Fu, Lorrie Cranor, Cynthia Dwork and Avi Rubin.  Specifically, we are looking for a brief response to the below […]

The National Academies’ Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable (GUIRR) is hosting a webinar with Dr. Bradford Tousley, Director of the Tactical Technology Office (TTO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on Thursday, October 22nd, from 1-2 PM EDT. The TTO of the DARPA develops system and subsystem level technologies that enable revolutionary improvements to the efficiency and effectiveness of military platforms. Specifically, TTO focuses on Ground Systems, Maritime and Undersea Systems, Air Systems, and Space Systems. As a part of the process, the office is soliciting executive summaries, white papers and proposals for advanced research, development and demonstration of innovative systems for military missions in those focus areas. The webinar will […]

The White House National Strategic Computing Initiative Workshop will be held next week in McLean, Virginia at the Hilton McLean Tysons Corner. The workshop will take place from Tuesday, October 20, 2015, at 8:45 A.M. – 5:30 P.M. and Wednesday, October 21, 2015, at 9:00 A.M. – 3:30 P.M. The themes include convergence of data-intensive and numerically intensive computing, hardware technology for future HPC (beyond Moore’s law), and improving productivity in HPC application development and deployment and workforce development. The day one keynote speaker is Dr. Thomas Theis, on assignment from the IBM Corporation to serve as the Executive Director of the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI) at the Semiconductor Research Corporation. The day two keynote speaker […]