Contributions to this post were provided by CCC Executive Council member, Daniel Lopresti from Lehigh University.  The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program (NITRD) Smart Cities and Communities (SCC) just released a Task Force Guide on “Connecting and Securing Communities: A Guide for Federal Agencies Supporting Research, Development, Demonstration, and Deployment of Technology for Smart Cities and Communities.” The purpose of this document is to guide and coordinate ongoing Federal activities that enhance the efforts of smart cities and communities and private sector partners. It describes recommended practices and approaches for research, development, coordination, and engagement by Federal agencies in support of U.S. cities and communities expanding their […]

What are the risks and benefits of quantum computing? What technical challenges does the field face? The National Academies’ Computer Science and Telecommunications Board in collaboration with the Intelligence Community Studies Board will release an upcoming report called Quantum Computing: Progress and Prospects, which assesses the current progress and possible future pathways towards developing a general-purpose quantum computer as well as its potential implications. They invite you to join them for a report release webinar on December 4, 2018 at 1:00pm EST where study committee chair Mark Horowitz and committee members Bob Blakley and John Martinis will discuss the key findings of the report and take questions from the audience. Please join the webinar […]

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) recently sponsored a Blue Sky Ideas Conference Track at the 26th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems, November 6- November 9, 2018 in Seattle, WA. The purpose was to bring together researchers, developers, users, and practitioners in relation to novel systems based on geo-spatial data and knowledge, and fostering interdisciplinary discussions and research in all aspects of geographic information systems. The goal of this track was to present visionary ideas at the conference. First Place- Understanding the Human Brain Via its Spatio-temporal Properties Ouri Wolfson (University of Illinois at Chicago) Second Place- Geofences in the Sky: Herding Drones with Blockchains and 5G Tamraparni Dasu (AT&T Labs-Research), Yaron […]

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), has named 49 Distinguished Members for outstanding contributions to the field. These 2018 Distinguished Members are exemplars for their peers and represent ACM’s worldwide geographic reach, as well as the exciting range of subdisciplines that constitute today’s technology landscape. One of this year’s distinguished members is former Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council member Vasant Honavar from the Pennsylvania State University. The ACM Distinguished Member program, initiated in 2006, recognizes those members with at least 15 years of professional experience who have made significant accomplishments or achieved a significant impact on the computing field. ACM Distinguished Membership recognizes up to 10% of ACM’s top members. Congrats, Vasant!

Last week we blogged about the Visioning Sessions at the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Early Career Researcher Symposium (ECR) but this week we will talk about our government sessions and subsequent discussions on day two. The ECR brought together 73 early career researchers and gave them the unique opportunity to meet agency representatives, hear presentations about the current science policy situation, and learn how they can reach out and get involved with the science policy community outside their institutions. Computing Research Association (CRA)’s Director of Government Affairs, Peter Harsha, gave an opening plenary on “Understanding Science Policy,” in which he stressed that even though we are in an administration that […]

In April 2018, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) held a Robotic Materials workshop in Washington, DC. This workshop was the second in a series of interdisciplinary workshops aimed at transforming our notion of materials to become “robotic”, that is have the ability to sense and impact their environment. Robotic materials has the potential to constitute a new material age in which man-made materials that mimic the complexity of biological tissue that includes muscles, nerves, and vascular systems become common place. The workshop report has been published here. From the report: The trend of materials becoming systems that integrates sensing, actuation or computation already exists, both in industry and government agencies. At the […]