Last week, the National Academies released a report chartered by Congress — “Research Universities and the Future of America: Ten Breakthrough Actions Vital to Our Nation’s Prosperity and Security” — assessing the competitive position of the nation’s research universities, and responding to the following question: What are the top 10 actions that Congress, the Federal government, state governments, research universities, and others can take to assure the ability of the American research university to maintain the excellence in research and doctoral education needed to help the United States compete, prosper, and achieve national goals for health, energy, the environment, and security in the global community of the 21st century? The report […]

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is holding its A.M. Turing Centenary Celebration in San Francisco, CA, today and Saturday — marking the 100th anniversary of Alan Turing’s birth by bringing together 33 living Turing Award winners for the first time, and raising awareness of Turing, reflecting on his contributions, and discussing the fundamental importance of computing and computer science. The event, which kicks off at 12pm EDT this afternoon, will be streamed live via the web. Over 1,000 in-person attendees are expected. As Vint Cerf, the General Chair for the celebration and himself the 2004 ACM Turing Award winner, writes (following the link):

As we described in this space yesterday, this morning at an event at the White House, the Obama Administration will formally launch the US Ignite Broadband Initiative, an at-scale, nationwide innovation ecosystem for developing and deploying public sector applications and services on ultra-high-speed, software-defined networks. The announcement will be streamed live beginning at 9am EDT — and we’ll cover it below (more after the jump…).

(This post has been updated; scroll down for the latest.) At a White House event Thursday morning, the Administration will formally announce new steps to expand and improve access to next-generation broadband technologies and applications — including the launch of US Ignite, a new public-private partnership spanning more than 100 members that will seek to bring together computing researchers, software and application developers, broadband carriers, and broadband users so that they can take advantage of ultra-high-speed, programmable broadband networks. The US Ignite partnership is being largely convened by the National Science Foundation (NSF), with the support of other Federal agencies, industry, non-profits, and local communities. Its key mission will be to leverage NSF’s […]

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) — together with the Case Foundation and the Joyce Foundation — is hosting an event Tuesday on Public Sector Prizes, seeking to further understand the role of incentive prizes and challenges in the public sector — and to catalyze future initiatives in this space. A portion of the event will be streamed live via the web for those interested. According to an OSTP announcement (following the link):

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has issued a solicitation — Spatial Uncertainty: Data, Modeling, and Communication — for innovative research that identifies sources of spatial uncertainty in public health data, incorporates the inaccuracy into statistical methods, and develops novel tools to visualize the nature and consequences of the spatial uncertainty. The solicitation, which spans 7 NIH institutes, offers deadlines of February 5, June 5, and October 5 through summer 2014. According to the NIH (following the link):