The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) today unanimously approved a draft report reviewing the 14-agency, $4 billion Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program. The 14-person working group that assisted with the biannual review, completed this summer, was co-chaired by Ed Lazowska (full disclosure: Ed is Chair of the CCC Council) and PCAST member David Shaw. In their summary of the major findings during a public session of PCAST in Washington, DC, this morning, Ed and David noted how networking and information technology (NIT) has greatly enhanced our nation’s economic competitiveness, all the while significantly accelerating the pace of discovery in all fields. They […]

Our colleagues at ACM today announced a landmark report that presents, for the first time, a state-by-state breakdown of current K-12 standards for computer science education, including specific high school graduation requirements: http://www.acm.org/runningonempty. At the same time, a new non-partisan coalition of associations, corporations, scientific societies, and other non-profits was unveiled. Computing in the Core, as it’s called, comprises CRA, NCWIT, the Anita Borg Institute for Women & Technology, the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), Microsoft, Google, and SAS. It strives to elevate computer science education to a core academic subject in K-12 education, giving young people the college- and career-readiness skills necessary in a technology-focused society. CinC’s new website […]

Dr. Ken Gabriel, the deputy director of DARPA, delivered a plenary address at CRA’s biannual Snowbird Conference on Monday morning — one day short of the one-year anniversary of the arrival of DARPA’s new leadership, including new DARPA director Dr. Regina Dugan. Gabriel spoke about DARPA’s incredible transformation over the past 12 months, including its renewed commitment to academic research. Specifically, Gabriel started by highlighting five key changes that have occurred at DARPA in the past year: – “Go/no-go” is gone. – Contracting has been simplified. The process is as clear, simple, and fast as the law allows. – More realistic conflict of interest rules have been applied to people […]

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) held its July 2010 meeting at the National Academies in Washington, DC, on Friday. The hearing began with a session on “Science, Technology, and Diplomacy” that featured the three founding members of the Science Envoys program – Bruce Alberts, Elias Zerhouni, and Ahmed Zewail – speaking candidly about their experiences as part of this new diplomatic effort, which places U.S. scientists in foreign nations to promote international relations. The three envoys shared insights they had gleaned while trying to improve diplomatic relations with Indonesia, Egypt, Algeria, Qatar, Turkey, and the U.A.E. A prevailing sentiment was the urgent need for a […]

The Computing Community Consortium recently prepared a white paper titled, “Information Technology Research Challenges for Healthcare: From Discovery to Delivery,” as a follow-on to the Discovery and Innovation in Health IT Workshop that the CCC co-sponsored with various Federal agencies in October 2009. The paper describes basic research opportunities that can catalyze transformations in healthcare — an enterprise that costs U.S. taxpayers $2.3 trillion (yes, that’s trillion!) each year but, by all accounts, is poorly equipped to handle the evolving needs of patients and providers. A multitude of factors — poor diet habits, stressful lifestyles, aging populations, etc. — is causing chronic diseases like cancer and arthritis to soar, and […]

The Computing Community Consortium was launched three years ago –- in the Spring of 2007. The “long version” of what we’ve been up to is detailed in a formal self-assessment submitted to NSF in the Summer of 2009. The “PowerPoint version” is contained in an overview slideset. Here, I’m going to focus on just a few specific activities, to argue the benefits of having our act together as a field. Broad agenda-setting During the transition period to the Obama administration, we had the opportunity to feed a number of “white papers” into the transition team’s planning process.  Thanks to the receptiveness of the incoming administration, these white papers had impact […]