Calling data “a transformative new currency for science, engineering, education, and commerce,” National Science Foundation (NSF) Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Farnam Jahanian kicked off a briefing about ‘Big Data’ on Capitol Hill earlier today. Organized by TechAmerica, the briefing sought to bring together a panel of leaders from government and industry to discuss the opportunities for innovation arising from the collection, storage, analysis, and visualization of large, heterogeneous data sets, all the while taking into consideration the non-trivial security and privacy implications. Jahanian noted how “Big Data is characterized not only by the enormous volume of data but also by the diversity and heterogeneity of the data and the […]

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) continues to roll out its annual awards, today naming William Wulf the recipient of its 2011 Distinguished Service Award and Seth Cooper its 2011 Doctoral Dissertation Award. Wulf is being recognized for his service as both the Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the President of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Cooper is receiving his honor for his groundbreaking work exploring the use of video games for solving difficult scientific problems. According to the ACM press release:

This morning, the University of California, Berkeley, announced a $60 million grant from the Simons Foundation — which seeks “to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences” — to establish the new Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing. The goal is to have “computer theorists and researchers from around the globe … converge to explore the mathematical foundations of computer science and extend them to tackle challenges in fields as diverse as mathematics, health care, climate modeling, astrophysics, genetics, economics and business.” The New York Times‘ John Markoff has the details in today’s paper (following the link):

Computing was among the excitement this past weekend at the 2nd Annual USA Science & Engineering Festival, held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. The festival is the largest celebration of science and engineering in the U.S. and featured over 500 exhibits and 75 performances and shows on multiple stages. The National Science Foundation (NSF) was an Einstenium sponsor of the Festival and supported a performance stage and the participation of 16 projects, including the SpelBots. The SpelBots are a team of students with an interest in robotics from Spelman College, a female historically black college, and were formed to inspire and encourage young women and underrepresented students […]

Late last month, the Administration unveiled a $200 million Big Data R&D Initiative, committing new funding to improve “our ability to extract knowledge and insights from large and complex collections of digital data.” The initiative includes a joint solicitation by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH), providing up to $25 million for Core Techniques and Technologies for Advancing Big Data Science and Engineering (BIGDATA). Now NSF and NIH have announced a webinar “to describe the goals and focus of the BIGDATA solicitation, help investigators understand its scope, and answer any questions potential Principal Investigators (PIs) may have.” The webinar will take place next week — on Tuesday, May 8th, from 11am to […]

Researchers from multiple disciplines spanning computer science, mathematics, the social, behavioral, and economic sciences, and biology gathered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last week for the first-ever Collective Intelligence conference. Organized by Tom Malone (MIT) and Luis von Ahn (Carnegie Mellon University), the conference sought papers about behavior that is both collective (spanning groups of individual actors, including people, computational agents, and organizations) and intelligent (the collective behavior of the group exhibits characteristics such as perception, learning, judgment, or problem solving). Over 100 papers were submitted for consideration, and 18 were selected for presentation (following the link):