The following is an announcement from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF Convergence Accelerator issued a Dear Colleague Letter (NSF-21-012): Request for Information (RFI) on Future Topics for the NSF Convergence Accelerator program to capture national-scale societal impact ideas from the global community for fiscal year 2022. The RFI is the kickoff of the Convergence Accelerator’s ideation process. Selected ideas will be asked to submit a conference proposal to further develop the proposed idea and to gather insights into a final report to assist NSF in determining convergence research topics for 2022.   RFI DETAILS Participants from academia, industry, government, non-profit, and other sectors are encouraged to submit their ideas here. Responses […]

This year Smart Cities Week is taking on a big challenge with a month of online virtual collaborative global engagement from October 19-November 10th, 2020. Called “A New Horizon: From Crisis, Opportunity,” it will explore a new horizon with thousands of fellow smart city policy-makers and practitioners. “Though our name specifies smart cities, innovative technologies are in demand at all levels of government—from innovation districts and port authorities to states, provinces and federal agencies.The smart cities ecosystem is extensive, involving numerous external stakeholders and collaborators – nonprofits, academics, financiers and private sector smart city specialists among them. Expect to connect with people from a wide range of sectors and disciplines, […]

Check out this recent podcast from the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute (with a somewhat unorthodox title based on this book) that attempts to illuminate important aspects of communication and misinformation.  Host Michael Garfield talks with Former SFI External Professor Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West, both at the University of Washington, who recently translated their undergraduate course on Calling [BS] into a book from Penguin Random House.  From the episode description:  “In this episode, we discuss their backgrounds and ongoing work in the evolutionary dynamics and information theory of communication, how to stage a strong defense against disinformation, and the role of scientists and laypeople alike to help […]

Krysta Svore, Microsoft, will present “Enabling the quantum revolution- pioneering advances to achieve quantum computing & impact at scale,” part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Distinguished Lecture Series on October 8th, 2020, from 11:00AM to 12:00PM ET. Dr. Krysta Svore is General Manager of Quantum Systems at Microsoft. She believes empowering people with the power of quantum computing, today and tomorrow, will be one of the greatest revolutionary steps in our history. She leads a team dedicated to realizing a commercial-scale quantum computing system and ecosystem to solve today’s unsolvable problems. She spent her early years at Microsoft developing machine-learning methods for web applications, including ranking, classification, […]

While the Computing Research Association’s Computing Community Consortium (CCC) works to catalyze the computing community for the public good, we have rarely prepared talks suitable for the non-computer-scientist public. Fortunately, CCC Chair Emeritus Mark D. Hill of the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently prepared a well-received general-audience talk for Participatory Learning And Teaching Organization (PLATO), a senior organization that arranges informative lectures, classes, and field trips, all virtual now. Prof. Hill’s one-hour talk has the immodest title “How Computing May Change Our World” (YouTube Video & Slide PDF). It discusses that, while computing has already changed how we communicate, work, and play, more big impacts are afoot. Prof. Hill gives insight […]

The Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF) is virtual this year! Like many things in 2020, it might not be the same experience, but the positive is that it can now be viewed by everyone here on the Livestream from 10AM- 4PM ET Monday (September 21st) through Thursday (September 24th).  Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Senior Program Associate Khari Douglas will be attending the virtual HLF to podcast and blog about the various talks and panels. Additionally, CCC Council member Shwetak Patel from the Univeristy of Washington will be talking on Tuesday, September 22nd at 10:30AM ET on Learning From Global Health Research to Address the Current Pandemic and then leading and participating […]