MIT Technology Review publishes an annual list of 35 innovators under the age of 35, and they recently released their list of innovators for 2018. The list features over 20 innovators who are solving problems related to or using computer science. Some highlights from the list include: Menno Veldhorst, Delft University – Veldhorst demonstrated a way to print quantum circuits on silicon, a task long considered impossible. This system of printing is now being used by Intel to create their new “spin qubit” chip and has greatly increased their capacity to produce quantum chips. Elizabeth Nyeko, Modularity Grid – The CEO of Modularity Grid, Nyeko has designed an intelligent, cloud-based system to […]

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has launched the Unlinkable Data Challenge with a $50k grand prize! The challenge aims to advance approaches to differential privacy, a term introduced by Dwork, McSherry, Nissim, and Smith in 2006, which refers to the privacy loss that occurs when an individual’s information is used in the manufacture of a large dataset. NIST is calling for concept papers that propose “a mechanism to enable the protection of personally identifiable information while maintaining a dataset’s utility for analysis.” How to Participate: The Unlinkable Data Challenge is a multi-stage Challenge.  This first stage of the Challenge is intended to source detailed concepts for new […]

Sunday, July 1st, was the start of a new CCC term!  The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is happy to announce that Mark D. Hill from the University of Wisconsin-Madison is now the Chair of the CCC and Liz Bradley from the University of Colorado-Boulder is the new Vice Chair. Beth Mynatt from Georgia Tech is the Past Chair. The CCC Chair and Vice Chair both serve two-year terms – at the culmination of the two years, the Vice Chair typically becomes the new Chair. The CCC also welcomes four new council members who began their three-year terms on Sunday: Ian Foster, University of Chicago David C. Parkes, Harvard University Ronitt Rubinfeld, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Suresh Venkatasubramanian, University of Utah             The CCC […]

The following is a guest blog post by Adam Chlipala, associate professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Many discussions of computer security adopt metaphors from war or biology. There is an arms race between attackers finding new ways to compromise systems, defenders implementing new mitigations, attackers figuring out how to breach them, and so on. Our systems must be prepared for great varieties of different attacks, each handled with its unique antibodies, which unfortunately can only be cooked up by surviving earlier, related attacks. What’s essential is constant vigilance, and we never quite know what could go horribly wrong the next time. The game could change if […]

The Cybersecurity Taskforce of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) will host a leadership workshop to envision the future of embedded security research on August 13th in Baltimore, Maryland. Embedded systems such as pacemakers, autonomous vehicles, and the Internet of Things often have real-time constraints and electromechanical components that lead to different vulnerabilities and solutions from traditional computing systems. Embedded security is the study of physical properties, computational properties, and human factors that protect embedded systems from attack. The workshop, co-chaired by Wayne Burleson (UMass Amherst), Kevin Fu (CCC Cybersecurity Taskforce Chair, University of Michigan), and Farinaz Koushanfar (UC San Diego), will be co-located with the 27th USENIX Security Symposium. It will begin with a reception on the evening of […]

The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) will hold a webinar on sociotechnical interventions for health disparity reduction on Wednesday, May 16th at 1pm ET. During the webinar, Katie Siek (Indiana) and Tiffany Veinot (Michigan) will discuss the conclusions from the recent Computing Community Consortium (CCC) workshop of the same name. On April 9-10, 2018, the CCC held a visioning workshop on Sociotechnical Interventions for Health Disparity Reduction, co-located with the Society for Behavioral Medicine 39th Annual Meeting in New Orleans, in order to examine the opportunities and challenges facing sociotechnical interventions designed to improve the health of disadvantaged populations and reduce health disparities within them. Health disparities are the differences in […]