Computing Community Consortium Blog

The goal of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is to catalyze the computing research community to debate longer range, more audacious research challenges; to build consensus around research visions; to evolve the most promising visions toward clearly defined initiatives; and to work with the funding organizations to move challenges and visions toward funding initiatives. The purpose of this blog is to provide a more immediate, online mechanism for dissemination of visioning concepts and community discussion/debate about them.


NSF CISE Announcement: Re-starting after the lapse in appropriations

January 29th, 2019 / in Announcements, NSF, pipeline, podcast, research horizons / by Helen Wright

The following is a letter to the community from James Kurose, Assistant Director, and Erwin Gianchandani, Deputy Assistant Director, of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE).  Dear Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Community, The National Science Foundation (NSF) is once again open for business, operating under a three-week continuing resolution (CR) through February 15, 2019, following the 35-day lapse in appropriations (lapse) that began December 22, 2018, and concluded this past Friday.  Many people have been impacted by the lapse, both personally and professionally, including our own NSF staff as well as all of you – our broader community.  Unfortunately, the lapse resulted in numerous […]

CCC Response to NITRD RFI to Update the 2016 Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategic Plan

January 28th, 2019 / in Announcements, CCC, policy, Research News, resources / by Helen Wright

The following post was contributed by CCC Director, Ann Drobnis.  The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) National Coordination Office (NCO), on behalf of Federal agencies and the NITRD Cybersecurity and Information Assurance Integrity Working Group, put out a Request for Information (RFI) from the public on the update to the 2016 Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategic Plan. The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) responded to the RFI on behalf of the community. An overarching theme of the CCC response is that systems are now ubiquitous, and need to be considered as socio-technical systems that must be secured, not simply technical systems. One of the key recommendations for […]

Interdisciplinary Research Challenges in Computer Systems (NSF Workshop Report)

January 15th, 2019 / in Announcements, CCC, NSF, pipeline, policy, research horizons, Research News / by Helen Wright

The following is a special contribution to this blog by CCC Chair Mark D. Hill of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Josep Torrellas of University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and co-author of the report discussed below.  All too many of us have experienced how academia’s reward structure seems to favor small projects led by one principal investigator in the jurisdiction of a sub-discipline within a larger discipline. Moreover, the current stability of universities tends to slow the formation of new departments for new disciplines. In contrast, the problems and opportunities that our society faces in education, commerce, science, and government do not respect academia’s boundaries and can require expertise and progress from many aspects […]

Code 8.7: Using Computation Science and AI to End Modern Slavery

January 14th, 2019 / in Announcements, policy, research horizons / by Khari Douglas

The Computing Community Consortium is cohosting Code 8.7: Using Computation Science and AI to End Modern Slavery on February 19-20, 2019 at the United Nations in New York City with the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research, The Alan Turing Institute, Tech Against Trafficking, University of Nottingham Rights Lab, and Arizona State University Global Security Initiative. Code 8.7 is a two-day conference that brings the computational research and artificial intelligence (AI) communities together with those working to achieve Target 8.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals. With Target 8.7, 193 countries agreed to take immediate and effective measures to end forced labour, modern slavery and human trafficking by 2030, and the worst forms of child labour […]

Nominations Sought for New CCC Council Members

January 10th, 2019 / in CCC / by Helen Wright

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is charged with catalyzing and empowering the U.S. computing research community to articulate and advance major research directions for the field. Established in 2006 through a cooperative agreement between the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Computing Research Association (CRA), the CCC provides a voice for the national computing research community, and facilitates the development of a bold, multi-themed vision for computing research, and communicates that vision to a wide range of major stakeholders. To fulfill its mission, the CCC needs truly visionary leaders — people with great ideas, sound judgment, and the willingness to work hard to see things to completion. The Council is comprised of 20 diverse researchers from across […]

Quantum Computing & Comic Books?

January 8th, 2019 / in research horizons, Research News, resources / by Helen Wright

The following is a special contribution to this blog by CCC Chair Mark D. Hill of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Quantum Computing (QC) is attracting considerable attention, including the National Quantum Initiative Act, The National Academies report on Quantum Computing Progress and Prospects, and the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Next Steps in Quantum Computing: Computer Science’s Role workshop report. QC has great potential especially for problems that have vast complex search spaces with positive implications like designing better chemical catalysts and negative implication like breaking public-key encryption. QC, however, is hard to understand in large part because it relies on quantum mechanics whose behavior defies the common sense that we humans have developed […]