The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Convergence of Data and Computing Task Force responded to the National Science Foundation (NSF) Dear Colleague Letter: Request for Information on Future Needs for Advanced Cyberinfrastructure to Support Science and Engineering Research (NSF CI 2030) in April 2017. You can see their response here. Recently, the NSF released all the responses to NSF CI 2030 RFI. This response led to the CCC’s Advanced Cyberinfrastructure for Science, Engineering, and Public Policy white paper. From the white paper: Progress in many domains increasingly benefits from our ability to view the systems through a computational lens. These advances would not be possible without the advanced data and computational cyberinfrastructure and tools for […]

Contributions to this post were provided by Klara Nahrstedt.  Roughly 12% of the global population today lives in 28 megacities, and at least 40 megacities are projected by 2030. Cost-effective management and sustainability of these growing urban areas will be one of the most critical challenges to our society, motivating the concept of science- and data-driven urban design, retrofit, and operation—that is, “Smart Cities”. Recently, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) in collaboration with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association (ECEDHA) released white papers describing a collective research agenda for intelligent infrastructure. Today, we highlight the final paper from the series called City-Scale Intelligent Systems and Platforms. A Smart City will require intelligent infrastructure that […]

Contributions to this post were made by Yigit Menguc from Oregon State University. The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) recently sponsored a workshop at the 2017 Robotics Science and Systems Conference called Material Robotics (MaRo). The goal of the workshop was to bring together researchers in robotics and materials science to learn from each other and identify the research challenges and applications of robotic materials. The original vision of a “robot” introduced by playwright Karel Čapek in 1920 was that of an autonomous machine molded in the image of humans. Interestingly, the play begins with a discussion of the materials that make up the robots and introduces the techniques used to […]

Three divisions at the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) have just released new solicitations for their core programs. Computing and Communication Foundation (CCF)  CCF supports the following three core programs: Algorithmic Foundations (AF) Communications and Information Foundations (CIF) Software and Hardware Foundations (SHF) Proposals submitted to this solicitation must be consistent with one of two project classes defined below: Small Projects Total budgets up to $500,000 for durations of up to three years Submission window- November 01, 2017 – November 15, 2017 Medium Projects Total budgets up to $500,001 to $1,200,000 for durations up to four years Submission window- September 20, 2017 – September 27, 2017 Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) […]

National Science Foundation (NSF) Assistant Director for the Directorate of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) James Kurose has issued the following letter to the community for pursuing meaningful actions in support of Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC). Dear Colleague: The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) is committed to broadening the participation of underrepresented populations in computing and closely-related disciplines. Indeed, CISE supports meaningful actions that address the longstanding underrepresentation of various populations including women, minorities (African Americans/Blacks, Hispanic Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, Native Pacific Islanders, and persons from economically disadvantaged backgrounds), and persons with disabilities, in the computing field. With this Dear […]

The next WATCH talk, called 35 Years of Cyberwar: The Squirrels are Winning is Thursday, July 20th, from 12 PM-1 PM ET. The presenter is Cris Thomas (aka Space Rogue) from IBM. Cris has an uncanny ability to link disparate events, read between the lines and distill complex, technical information into readily understandable, accessible and actionable intelligence. He and his colleagues created the first security research think tank, L0pht Heavy Industries, and the widely popular video news show The Hacker News Network. Eager to share his wealth of knowledge on security trends, Cris has testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and has been interviewed by media organizations […]