Last week the National Science Foundation (NSF), in partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Agriculture and NASA announced $31.5 million in new awards to spur the development and use of robots that work cooperatively with people (known as co-robots). The awards mark the third round of funding made through the National Robotics Initiative (NRI), a multi-agency program launched in September 2012 as part of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Initiative, with NSF as the lead federal agency. The 52 new research awards, ranging from $300,000 to $1.8 million over one to four years, advance fundamental understanding of robotic sensing, motion, computer vision, machine learning and human-computer interaction. The awards […]

Computer science and brain science share deep intellectual roots. Today, understanding the structure and function of the human brain is one of the greatest scientific challenges of our generation. Decades of study and continued progress in our knowledge of neural function and brain architecture have led to important advances in brain science, but a comprehensive understanding of the brain still lies well beyond the horizon. How might computer science and brain science benefit from one another? The CCC BRAIN two-day workshop, sponsored by the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) and National Science Foundation (NSF), brings together brain researchers and computer scientists for a scientific dialogue aimed at exposing new opportunities for joint […]

The following is a Computing Research Policy Blog post by Peter Harsha, CRA Director of Government Affairs.  As part of its mission to develop a next generation of leaders in the computing research community, the Computing Research Association’s Computing Community Consortium (CCC) announces the third offering of the CCC Leadership in Science Policy Institute (LiSPI), intended to educate computing researchers on how science policy in the U.S. is formulated and how our government works. We seek nominations for participants. LiSPI will be centered around a two day workshop to be held April 27-28, 2015 in Washington, DC. (Full details of LiSPI are available at: http://cra.org/ccc/spi.) LiSPI will feature presentations and discussions […]

  In honor of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE-USA) sponsored a Capitol Hill briefing titled Privacy and Security in a Connected Age on October 30.  This briefing was hosted by the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus, including the Caucus Co-Chairs Congressman Michael McCaul and Congressman James Langevin. Dr. C Suzanne Iacono, acting Assistant Director for the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate at NSF and moderator of the panel, opened the session by saying, “If we want a future with more individual choice and freedom, a future that we want to live in…we need to create large scale systems that […]

On November 6, 2014, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Biological Technologies Office (BTO) announced a new program with a simplified process for engaging with DARPA that will make it easier for businesses to attract up to $700k in seedling funding to pursue capabilities at the intersection of biology and technology. From Dr. Alicia Jackson, deputy director of DARPA’s BTO: DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office looks at biology as a technology, with a focus on harnessing living systems or integrating those systems with nonliving systems.  If you look at where we’re already invested, it’s in areas such as human-machine interfaces, synthetic biology, combatting infectious disease and optimizing human health. The ideas we’re seeking would continue that […]

The following is a guest blog post by CCC Council Member Shashi Shekhar, McKnight Distinguished University Professor Department of Computer Science College of Science and Engineering University of Minnesota. Cyber-Earth, a web-based geo-referenced representation of our changing planet, is a powerful tool for communication among citizens, policy makers, and scientists. In the last decade, billions have enjoyed Google Earth, which provides geo-imagery describing a recent state of the entire planet. It is a scalable tool to share geo-imagery (e.g., aftermath of Hurricane Katarina) with citizens and policy makers. It also allows citizens to contribute geo-spatial information to improve map quality and coverage as envisaged in the 1998 speech by Vice President Al Gore on […]