Each year MIT Technology Review publishes a list of 35 innovators under the age of 35. Recently, they published the list for 2014. All 35 of these people are doing exciting work that could shape their fields for decades. But they’re solving problems in remarkably different ways. We consider some of them to be primarily Inventors; they’re immersed in building new technologies. Others we call Visionaries, because they’re showing how technologies could be put to new or better uses. Humanitarians are using technology to expand opportunities or inform public policy. Pioneers are doing fundamental work that will spawn future innovations; such ­breakthroughs will be taken up by tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs, ­people who […]

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) program has announced two new funding opportunities for FY15 funding. NIH Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) Initiative Research Education: Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Data Management for Biomedical Big Data (R25) RFA-LM-15-001 This FOA will support the creation of a massive open online course (MOOC) that can be used by librarians, faculty, students and others to learn concepts, approaches and best practices in the area of data management, and also used in conjunction with local training activities about the management of biomedical Big Data. One award is expected. Application receipt date is March 17, 2015. NIH Big Data to Knowledge […]

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) announced in October a new solicitation, entitled US Ignite, that is a big step forward in the US Ignite Administration initiative. From the solicitation: The primary goal of US Ignite is to break a fundamental deadlock: there is insufficient investment in gigabit applications that can take advantage of advanced network infrastructure because such infrastructure is rare and dispersed. And conversely, there is a lack of broad availability of advanced broadband infrastructure for open experimentation and innovation because there are few advanced applications and services to justify it. US Ignite aims to break this deadlock by providing incentives for […]

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer Science and Engineering (CISE) in partnership with Intel announced a joint funding opportunity called Visual and Experiential Computing (VEC), aimed at fostering novel, transformative, and multidisciplinary approaches that promote research in VEC technologies. The advancement of sensing technology, multi-camera and light field imaging systems, networks of sensors, advanced visual analytics and cloud computing will challenge the longstanding paradigms of capturing, creating, analyzing and utilizing visual information. Advances in VEC will enable capability, adaptability, scalability, and usability that will far exceed the simple information systems of today. VEC technology will transform the way people interact with visual information through, for example, the realization of new mobile and […]

Recently, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) posted an article about Algorithms in the Field (AitF) a new program in the Directorate for Computer Science and Engineering (CISE) at the National Science Foundation (NSF). AitF aims to promote collaboration between theory researchers and those in more applied areas. The program synopsis reads as follows: Algorithms in the Field encourages closer collaboration between two groups of researchers: (i) theoretical computer science researchers, who focus on the design and analysis of provably efficient and provably accurate algorithms for various computational models; and (ii) applied researchers including a combination of systems and domain experts (very broadly construed – including but not limited to researchers in computer architecture, […]

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) sponsored another track in its Blue Sky Ideas Conference Track series at the 22nd ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE), November 16-22, 2014 in Hong Kong. FSE is an internationally renowned forum for researchers, practitioners, and educators to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, experiences, and challenges in software engineering. The goal of this track was to emphasize visionary ideas, long term challenges, and opportunities in software engineering research that are outside of current mainstream topics of the field. This year’s winning papers were: First Prize Methodology and Culture: Drivers of Mediocrity in Software Engineering? Marian Petre and Daniela Damian (Open University, UK; University of Victoria, […]