The following is a guest blog from the BPCnet.org Steering Committee.  To the computing community, With this particularly challenging academic year coming to an end, and the upcoming NSF CISE program submissions, it is a good time to update everyone on the NSF CISE Pilot Program for Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) Plans. All Medium and Large CISE Core Programs, Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC), and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) project proposals require an approved BPC Plan by the time of award. CRA and NCWIT have led an effort to develop the BPCnet.org portal as a resource for the community to assist in developing Departmental BPC Plans and Individual BPC Plans. New Resources on BPCnet.org: […]

The following is a guest blog from CCC Member Tom Conte of Georgia Tech. A recent article in SCIENCE, authored by Charles E. Leiserson, Neil Thompson, Joel Emer, Bradley Kuszmaul, Butler Lampson, Daniel Sanchez and Tao Schardl,  entitled “There’s plenty of room at the Top: What will drive computer performance after Moore’s law?” discusses the way forward after the end of technology scaling.  (The title is a play on Richard Feynman’s 1959 address to the American Physical Society, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” wherein Feynman observed that miniaturization would lead to what we now call Moore’s Law.)  So, what comes after Moore’s Law?  The article discusses improvements in […]

Join the AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellows for a virtual symposium on Living with AI: The Human Impacts of AI on June 11 from 9:00 AM ET- 4:30 PM ET. Please register here! Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing how we think about every aspect of our daily lives, impacting our food, health, work, and society. Public discourse often focuses on AI as‌ ‌a‌ ‌social‌ ‌good‌ ‌that‌ ‌will‌ ‌increase‌ ‌efficiency‌ ‌and‌ ‌improve‌ ‌outcomes for all,‌ without examining how racial, ethnic, and gender biases can be encoded‌ ‌into‌ the underlying ‌algorithms.‌ Building on the recommendations of the National AI R&D Strategic Plan, this symposium will provide a nuanced perspective on […]

ACM has announced the election of Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council member Elisa Bertino as Secretary/Treasurer for a two-year term from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2020! Bertino is the Samuel D. Conte Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University. In addition, Computing Research Association Board member and Vice Chair Nancy M. Amato has been elected for a four-year Member-at-Large term. She will serve from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2024. Congrats, Elisa and Nancy!

The following blog was originally posted in ACM SIGARCH on May 26th, 2020. It is written by Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Chair Mark D. Hill from the University of Wisconsin Madison. Hill is the recipient of the 2019 Eckert-Mauchly award, a lifetime achievement award in computer architecture.  TL;DR: This post reviews some successful visioning in computer architecture and related fields. It argues why visioning is necessary for our field to flourish and discusses how the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) has facilitated some of this. Visioning is especially critical now as disruptions arrive from many quarters. Visioning: The development of a plan, goal, or vision for the future. From Latin videre–to see. “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” […]

The following is a guest blog post from Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council member Katie Siek, Indiana University.  Automated, proximity-based contact tracing apps use Bluetooth to identify who is near them. In theory, this is a great solution that can be efficiently deployed widely (albeit with many privacy and protocol considerations addressed here), however the assumption is that people have access to mobile phones with Bluetooth and use technology similarly. We know that not everyone has access to smartphones. Pew notes that approximately 70% of Americans who make less than $30,000 a year own a smartphone. Similar stats are seen for Americans who live in rural areas and those with […]