The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology Policy (PCAST) met on November 12, 2013 and highlighted computing throughout the meeting.  The first agenda item was an overview of a soon-to-be-released letter report on Education Information Technology (EdIT).  There will eventually be three letter reports on this topic, with the first focusing on Higher Education, particularly Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs).  A variety of items were addressed during this session, with the highlights being that in this new era of Big Data, high bandwidth, and software innovation, opportunities to evolve pedagogical systems and personalize education are near.  You can view the discussion here.  Future EdIT letter reports will focus on […]

The Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) in the Education and Human Resources (EHR) Directorate at the National Science Foundation (NSF) has released a new funding program called Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE).  It is a broader funding opportunity to support projects that address immediate challenges and opportunities facing undergraduate STEM (including Computing) education, as well as those that anticipate new structures and functions of the undergraduate STEM learning and teaching enterprise. From the solicitation: Recognizing that the preparation of a globally-competitive workforce, including future teachers, and a scientifically literate populace requires excellent STEM education, DUE supports the improvement of the undergraduate STEM education enterprise through funding research on design, development, and […]

In September, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) put out a call for visioning proposals for workshops that will create exciting visions and agendas for research at the frontiers of computing.  Proposals are due December 1, 2013. From the solicitation: Successful workshops will articulate new research visions, galvanize community interest in those visions, and mobilize support for those visions from the computing research community, government leaders, and funding agencies…Proposals are encouraged across the full spectrum of theoretical and applied work related to the creation and application of information technologies as well as their use in addressing important scientific or societal challenges…Budgets can range in size from $10,000 to as much as $200,000, depending […]

On Monday, November 25, 2013, Alessandro Acquisti from Carnegie Mellon University will present at the next Washington Area Trustworthy Computing Hour (WATCH), a series of thought-provoking talks by innovative thinkers with ideas that illuminate the challenges and provide signposts toward solutions in trustworthy computing.  The title of his talk is An Experiment in Hiring Discrimination via Online Social Networks. The series is jointly organized by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) Directorates, and sponsored by the CISE Trustworthy Computing Program. The abstract: Anecdotal evidence and self-report surveys suggest that U.S. firms are using Web 2.0 and social networking sites to seek information about prospective hires. However, […]

President Barack Obama has announced his intent to nominate two new members to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology Policy (PCAST).  The new appointees are J. Michael McQuade, Senior Vice President of Science and Technology at United Technologies Corporation and Susan L. Graham.  President Obama said, I am confident that these outstanding individuals will greatly serve the American people in their new roles and I look forward to working with them in the months and years to come. Graham is the current Chair of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC).  She has been a key leader with the CCC since its inception in 2006.  Graham is the Pehong Chen Distinguished Professor of […]

On November 12, 2013, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the Networking and Information Technology R&D (NITRD) program held an event, Data to Knowledge to Action: Building New Partnerships, to showcase high-impact collaborations created as a result of the Big Data R&D Initiative and to further identify areas for expanded collaborations. John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Farnam Jahanian, Co-chair of the Subcommittee for NITRD and Assistant Director for the CISE Directorate at the National Science Foundation (NSF), opened the event with welcoming remarks and shared the progress made by Federal Agencies.  Tom Kalil, Deputy Director for Technology and Innovation at […]