The Computing Research Association’s Computing Community Consortium (CCC) mission is broad. Our mission is to catalyze the computing research community and enable the pursuit of innovative, high-impact research. CCC conducts activities that strengthen the research community, articulate compelling research visions, and align those visions with pressing national and global challenges. As a consequence, material on the CCC web site spans many areas of IT such as Intelligent Infrastructure, Privacy and Fairness, Artificial Intelligence, and Cybersecurity. Most IT professionals, however, only focus on one of these areas in order to make deep connections. Until recently, users had to know exactly what to search for in order to find material in their focus area. For this […]

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 […]

Contributions to the post were provided by Yair Rotstein, head of the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF). The US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Research Cooperation, which provides an overarching framework to encourage collaboration between US and Israeli research communities and sets out the principles by which jointly supported activities might be developed. The MOU provides for an international collaboration arrangement whereby US researchers may receive funding from the NSF and Israeli researchers may receive funding from the BSF. This is part of a larger program; see the NSF Dear Colleague Letter from last summer here. The goal of […]

Recently, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) posted about the USDA/NIFA Food and Agriculture Cyber-infrastructure and Tools (FACT) initiative.  Check out this webinar about FACT on Wednesday, June 27th at 2PM ET.  FACT seeks to catalyze activities that harness big data for synthesizing new knowledge, making predictive decisions, and fostering data-supported innovation in agriculture. Projects funded through FACT will work to examine the value of data for small and large farmers, agricultural and food industries, and gain an understanding of how data can impact the agricultural supply chain, reduce food waste and loss, improve consumer health, environmental and natural resource management, affect the structure of U.S. food and agriculture sectors, and increase U.S. competitiveness. The webinar will […]