Imagine diagnosing a hospital patient with septicemia 25 hours before the onset of sepsis shock, dispatching the right police officer to de-escalate a situation, or increasing agricultural productivity based on weather knowledge where few weather stations exist. These scenarios are not simply dreams, but thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) research are actually happening in the world today and are having a positive impact on societies across the globe. Interest in artificial intelligence has been rapidly increasing in recent years, often with a focus on the flashy robot or computer that can speak responses, but the practical applications have a major societal impact and are often overlooked. AI has been successfully applied to societal […]

Big Data has been a major theme of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) over the years. In addition to having a Convergence of Data and Computing Task Force, the CCC held two events for Big Data that coalesced the research community and the usage community in 2008. A number of CCC’s white papers have also focused on the topic, including Challenges and Opportunities with Big Data (2012), Opportunities and Challenges for Next Generation Computing (2015), Accelerating Science: A Computing Research Agenda (2016), and a series of white papers on Big Data and National Priorities (2010) that were instrumental in the creation of the Big Data Initiative.   The following is a White House Blog Post by Keith Marzullo, the Director of the Networking […]

The following is a guest blog post by Beth Mynatt, Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Vice Chair and professor of Interactive Computing and the executive director of Georgia Tech‘s Institute for People and Technology (IPaT).  The Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Pioneers Project draws attention to HCI trail-blazers by describing their backgrounds and contributions. Ben Shneiderman, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Maryland, started the personal photo journal as a tribute to these individuals and as a celebration of their contributions to HCI. He hopes to make the pioneer’s projects more visible to a wider audience by featuring them on the website. Ben always had his camera with him at major conferences and […]

National Science Foundation (NSF) Assistant Director for the Directorate of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) James Kurose and NSF Assistant Director for Education and Human Resources (EHR) Joan Ferrini-Mundy have issued the following letter to the community to draw attention to existing NSF funding opportunities in Fiscal Year 2016 that are available to support the CS for All initiative. March 10, 2016 Dear Colleagues: The National Science Foundation (NSF) is pleased to be part of the Computer Science for All (CS for All) initiative announced by the Administration on January 30, 2016. As the lead Federal agency for building the research knowledge base for CS education, NSF plans to make available $120 million over […]

The following is a special contribution to this blog by Sankar Basu, National Science Foundation (NSF) Program Director for Computing and Communication Foundations.  NSF recently announced a new program solicitation, Energy-Efficient Computing: from Devices to Architectures (E2CDA), which is a partnership with among NSF’s Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Directorate and the Engineering (ENG) Directorate with the Semiconductor Research Corporation. Through this joint solicitation, NSF and SRC aim to support game-changing research that can set the stage for the next paradigm of computing – from mobile devices to data centers – by minimizing the energy impact of future computing systems. The program synopsis reads as follows: There is a […]

President Obama has named 105 researchers recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers. This is the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers. Awardees are selected for their pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and their commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education, or community outreach. Some of the awardees in computer science include Pieter Abbeel, from University of California, Berkeley, Aaron Roth, from University of Pennsylvania, Sayeef Salahuddin, from University of California, Berkeley, Jakita Thomas, from Spelman College, and CCC council member Shwetak Patel, from the […]