The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has announced the first group of teams from the Cyber Grand Challenge. The DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge is a tournament designed to increase the development of automated security systems able to defend against cyber attacks as fast as they are launched. It is aimed at the inadequacy of current network security systems in which attackers can take advantage of weaknesses to steal information. This is becoming an even greater concern as more and more devices, including vehicles and homes, get networked in what has become known as “the Internet of things.” From DARPA’s announcement yesterday: “Today’s security methods involve experts working with computerized systems to identify attacks, craft corrective […]

The Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) along with the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) at the National Science Foundation (NSF) have released the following Dear Colleague Letter (DCL). May 29, 2014 Dear Colleagues: The National Science Foundation (NSF) is announcing its intention to fund a small number of Early Concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGERs) to encourage advances in cybersecurity education, an area supported by the Foundation’s Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) (see solicitation NSF 13-578) and CyberCorps®: Scholarship for Service (see solicitation NSF 14-510) programs. EAGER is a mechanism for supporting exploratory work in its early stages on untested, but potentially transformative, research ideas or approaches. […]

The following is a special contribution to the blog from Farnam Jahanian, Assistant Director for the Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Directorate at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Dear Computer and Information Science and Engineering Community, It is my pleasure to let you know that NSF is offering a new opportunity, CISE Research Initiation Initiative (CRII), to support early-career researchers in our discipline.  This program reaffirms CISE’s commitment to the support and growth of future generations of computer and information scientists and engineers and complements our investments in the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program. The goal of CRII is to contribute to the growth and development of future generations of scientists and engineers who will dedicate their careers […]

The Computing Innovation Fellows (CI Fellows) project, was a program that granted short-term postdoctoral fellowships to help keep recent graduates in the field during the economic downturn. Between 2009 and 2011, 127 PhD graduates in computer science and related fields were awarded  CI Fellowships. The program has ended and the former CI Fellows are now in the early years of their formal careers.   Computing Innovation Fellows (CI Fellows) from all three cohorts (2009, 2010, 2011) assembled on May 22-23 in San Francisco, CA to reflect on the success of the program and absorb information and advice from leaders in computing research. This was the first gathering of all three […]

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Innovation Office (I2O) hosted Demo Day 2014 to highlight DARPA’s ongoing contributions to preserving and expanding Information Technology superiority on May 21. The Pentagon event showcased the span of DARPA projects designed to change how the nation addresses growing national security challenges posed by the Information Revolution and by the increasing global availability of sophisticated information technologies.  Some of the projects on display were: DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge (CGC): CGC, to be launched this summer, will be the first-ever tournament for testing fully automatic network defense systems. The competition’s goal is to vastly improve the speed, scale and effectiveness of IT security against escalating cyber threats. High-Assurance […]

The following announcement is a special contribution from the National Science Foundation. Dear Colleague: How scientific research is conducted across all science disciplines is changing. One important direction of change is toward more open science, often driven by projects in which the output is purely digital, i.e., software or data. Scientists and engineers who develop software and generate data for their research spend significant time in the initial development of software or data frameworks, where they focus on the instantiation of a new idea, the widespread use of some infrastructure, or the evaluation of concepts for a new standard. Despite the growing importance of data and software products the effort […]